liil'^ 



hiiiiniiiiiiii 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Cliap J-^- Copyright No. 

Sholf..y.jC=-l.<^' 



I 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



CAMBRIDGE 

FIFTY TEAKS A CITY 









H^HHIH~ ^^igisi 





/ 



Hon. \V. A. llaiKioft 

C/ininnini General Commillee 

Huu. John Read 

Chief Marshal 



Mr. U. O. Uoiighton 
Chainnun Citizens'' Committee 
Jolin Fiske, LL. D. 
Orator 



CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY 

1846-1896 



AN ACCOUNT OF 



THE CELEBRATION OF THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 
OF THET incorporation of THE CITY OF 
\^AMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 



JUNE 2-3, 1896 



EDITED BY 



WALTER GEE DAVIS 



UNDER THE DIRECTION OF A SUB -COMMITTEE, APPOINTED BY 
THE GENERAL COMMITTEE ON THE CELEBRATION 



It is fitting that at suitable periods, and in a suitable manner, a city should 
publish to the world some account of its resources, some statement of its charac- 
teristics, some outline of its prospects. — William Amos Bancroft. 



i^tr 






CAMBRIDGE .'V*^*^ 

prititet) at tlje Hibersfitie pre^sf 

1897 



SUB-COMMITTEE ON THE PUBLICATION OF AN OFFICIAL 
ACCOUNT OF THE CELEBRATION. 

George A. Allison, Chairman. 
John Read. Charles P. Keith. 

Peter P. Bleiler. Henry 0. Houghton. 

Isaac S. Pear. 



Copyright, 1897, 
By GEORGE A. ALLISON, Chairman. 






i 

J 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introductiox 7 

The Celebration . 14 

Oration by John Fiske, Litt. D., LL. 1). 29 

Rev. Edward Abbott, D. D. 46 

Hon. William A. Bancroft (School Exercises, Sanders Theatre) . . 56 

Hon. William A. Bancroft (Public Meeting) 58 

Rev. David Nelson Beach, D. D 60 

Rev. George W. Bicknell, D. D 65 

Rev. Alexander Blackburn, D. D 68 

George Rufps Cook 71 

Charles W. Eliot, LL. D. (School Exercises, Sanders Theatre) . . .73 

Charles W. Eliot, LL. D. (Banquet) 76 

Rev. Frank Oliver Hall . 78 

Professor Albert Bushnell Hart 90 

Hon. Frank A. Hill 95 

George Henry Howard 104 

Hon. Chester W. Kingsley 106 

Judge Charles J. McIntire 108 

Rev. Alexander McKenzie, D. D. (Public Meeting) Ill 

Rev. Alexander McKenzie, D. D. (Sermon) 116 

Rev. George A. Phinney (Willard School) 120 

Rev. George A. Phinney (Sermon) 121 

Hon. Josiah Quincy 131 

Rev. Charles F. Rice, D. D 133 

Hon. Charles H. Saunders 135 

Rev. Isaiah W. Sneath, Ph. D 138 

Rev. Robert Walker 146 

William Henry Whitney 151 

His Excellency, Roger Wolcott 154 

Rev. Theodore F. Wright, Ph. D. (Allston School) .... 156 

Rev. Theodore F. Wright, Ph. D. (Sermon) 158 

Roster of the Procession 163 

Athletic Sports 176 

Invited Guests 179 

Committees . 183 

Official Programme 187 

Financial Statement 192 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The City Hall Frontispiece 

PORTBAITS OF THE CHAIRMAN OF THE GENERAL COMMITTEE, THE CHAIR- 
MAN OF THE Citizens' Committee, the Chief Marshal, and the 

Orator Facing Title 

Portraits of the General Committee : Board of Aldermen . . 6 
Portraits of the General Committee : Common Council . . 7 

Portraits of the General Committee : Ward One 10 

Portraits of the General Committee : Ward Two .... 11 
Portraits of the General Committee : Ward Three . . .22 

Portraits of the General Committee : Ward Four ... 23 
Portraits of the General Committee : Ward Five . . . .26 

Portraits of the Chiefs of Divisions 27 

Head of the Procession passing through Harvard Square : Hon. 

John Read, Chief Marshal, and Staff 162 

Aids and Members of the Chief Marshal's Staff .... 163 
The Fifth Regiment, M. V. M. Massachusetts Avenue . . . 164 
The Fifth Regiment, M. V. M. Central Square .... 164 
The First Corps of Cadets, M. V. M. Harvard Square . . . 165 
Carriage containing Acting Governor Wolcott, Mayor Bancroft, 

President Eliot, and Mr. Houghton 166 

Carriages containing the Invited Guests. Massachusetts Avenue 167 
Carriages containing the Invited Guests. Central Square . . 167 
First Battalion Cavalry, M. V. M. Massachusetts Avenue . . 168 

Cambridge Posts, G. A. R. Central Square 169 

Manual Training School Band. Central Square .... 170 

Manual Training School Flre Brigade 170 

Manual Training School Floats. Central Square . . . 171 

High and Latin Schoolboys. Central Square 171 

Harvard Students, Senior Class. Massachusetts Avenue . . 172 
Harvard Students, Senior Class. Harvard Square .... 172 
Harvard Students, Junior Class, and " John the Orangeman." Mas- 
sachusetts Avenue 173 



Harvard Students, Freshman Class. Harvard Square 
Provisional Battalion, M. V. M. Central Square . 
Detachment, Naval Brigade, M. V. M. Central Square . 

Fire Department. Central Square 

Fire Department 

Red Jacket Veteran Firemen's Association. Central Square 
Salem Veteran Firemen's Association. Central Square . 

Cambridge Turnverein. Central Square 

St. John's Literary Institute. Central Square 



173 
174 

174 
175 
175 
178 
178 
179 
180 



Tammany Club. Central Square 180 



4 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Church of the Sacred Heart Sunday-school Children. Central 

Square Igj 

Cambridgeport Gymnasium Association, Central Square . 182 
St. Mart's Church of the Annunciation Sunday-school Children. 

Central Square laq 

Trades' Division -.oo 

Trades' Division ^oo 

Trades' Division ,q„ 

Trades' Division jgQ 

Trades' Division jg^ 

Trades' Division jg^ 

Trades' Division igg 

Trades' Division joo 

Trades' Division jgo 

Trades' Division jgo 

Trades' Division joq 

Trades' Division jqn 

Trades' Division . . . . • ^m 

Trades' Division 191 



I. 




GENERAL COMMITTEE -MAYOR AND BOARD OF ALDERMEN 

Russell Bradford Marshall N. Stearns 

Henry White Charles M. Coiiaiit Peter F. Rourke 

William A. Bancroft, Mayor John R. Fairbairn, President 

Peter P. Bleiler Clarence H. Douglass Charles P. Keith 

Watsou G. Cutter E. W. Pike James A. Wood 

Sec'y Gfii'l Committee 




GEXEKAL COMMITTEE -COMMON COUNCIL 

Melville C. Bee.ll.. William F. Brooks George E. Sriunders Walter C. Wardxvell 

S«dley Cl.ai.liM Willia... R. Davis Charles H. Montague Clen.ei.t G. Morgan 

Jol.n J. Alum John L. Odiorne, I're«ident Cornelius Minil.an 

John J. Srott Frank II. Willard David W. B,,tt.-rfield Daniel S. Coolidge Eben H. Googins 

OriR.M. n. IT. 1,1,. AllH.rt S. Apsey Robert A. Parry 



H.iniilton H. Perkins 



INTRODUCTION. 

The fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the city was 
celebrated by the citizens of Cambridge with appropriate pub- 
lic exercises, which extended over two days. From the time 
the celebration was first suggested, in the month of March, 
1895, till the last rocket had faded away in the heavens, on the 
night of June 3, 1896, there was but one dominating thought. 
Its influence was potent during the long months of prepara- 
tion. Its power inspired the pidpit of the city. It was the 
pervasive and controlling force in every feature of the two days' 
observance ; and its imj^ress is a priceless memory in the hearts 
of all, both young and old, who participated in the celebration. 
Not a word was spoken, not a note sung, not a single act per- 
formed, that did not express some phase of this one dominating 
thought : the glory and greatness of Cambridge. 

The celebration was first suggested by Mr. Theodore H. 
Raymond, the secretary of the Citizens' Trade Association. 
In his annual report, March 20, 1895, Mr. Raymond recom- 
mended that the association should take the initiative steps for 
a proper observance of the semi-centennial anniversary of the 
incorporation of the city, which came the following year, 1896. 
The first public suggestion for the celebration, however, was 
made in an editorial in the " Cambridge Press," of April 6, 
1895. The following May 1, the Citizens' Trade Association 
took the first step in the long series which culminated finally in 
the official celebration. The committee on public affairs, on that 
date, were requested to consider the matter, and, on their report 
at the regular meeting of the association, held June 19, appro- 
priate resolutions were adopted. At that time, a committee 
was appointed to call a public meeting of the citizens of Cam- 
bridge for the purpose of appointing a committee to arrange for 
the public ceremonies. This meeting was held in the Trade 
Association Hall, October 14, and a committee of citizens — 
ten from each ward of the city — was appointed.^ At the re- 

1 See p. 183. 




;; 



4:11 x*T 





"^ 






\ ^^1 W <^ J 




^^ 



r^ z;^ 




GENERAL (OMMITTEE- COMMON COUNCIL 

Melville C. BeedL- Williaiii K. Brooks George E. Saunders Walter C. Wardwell 

Sedley Cliai>liii William R. Davis Charles H. Montague Clement G. Morgan 

.lohn J. Alii-ni John L. Odiorne, President Cornelius Minilian 

John J. Scott Frank H. Willard David \V. Btitt.rfield Daniel S. Coolidge Eben H. Googins 

Hamilton H. Perkins Origeii D. Prel)lc Albert S. Apsey Robert A. Parry 



INTRODUCTION. 

The fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the city was 
celebrated by the citizens of Cambridge with appropriate pub- 
lic exercises, which extended over two days. From the time 
the celebration was first suggested, in the month of March, 
1895, till the last rocket had faded away in the heavens, on the 
night of June 3, 1896, there was but one dominating thought. 
Its influence was potent during the long months of prepara- 
tion. Its power inspired the pidpit of the city. It was the 
pervasive and controlling force in every feature of the two days' 
observance ; and its impress is a priceless memory in the hearts 
of all, both young and old, who participated in the celebration. 
Not a word was spoken, not a note sung, not a single act per- 
formed, that did not express some phase of this one dominating 
thought : the glory and greatness of Cambridge. 

The celebration was first suggested by Mr. Theodore H. 
Raymond, the secretary of the Citizens' Trade Association. 
In his annual report, March 20, 1895, Mr. Raymond recom- 
mended that the association should take the initiative steps for 
a proper observance of the semi-centennial anniversary of the 
incorporation of the city, which came the following year, 1896. 
The first public suggestion for the celebration, however, was 
made in an editorial in the " Cambridge Press," of April 6, 
1895. The following May 1, the Citizens' Trade Association 
took the first step in the long series which culminated finally in 
the official celebration. The committee on public affairs, on that 
date, were requested to consider the matter, and, on their report 
at the regular meeting of the association, held June 19, appro- 
priate resolutions were adopted. At that time, a committee 
was appointed to call a public meeting of the citizens of Cam- 
bridge for the purpose of appointing a committee to arrange for 
the public ceremonies. This meeting was held in the Trade 
Association Hall, October 14, and a committee of citizens — 
ten from each ward of the city — was appointed.^ At the re- 

1 See p. 183. 



8 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

quest of the Citizens' Trade Association, the city council of 
1895, on motion of Alderman Keith, appointed a joint special 
committee^ to cooperate with the citizens' committee. The 
joint committee — citizens and city council — constituted the 
general committee. In 1896, the representation of the city of 
Cambridge on the general committee was changed, by the ap- 
pointment of all the members of both branches of the city 
council ^ of that year ; and there were also a few additions 
made to the citizens' committee. Mr. Henry O. Houghton, the 
president of the Citizens' Trade Association, was the chairman 
of the citizens' committee. The organization of the general 
committee was as follows : chairman, Hon. William A. Ban- 
croft, mayor of Cambridge ; secretary, Mr. Eben "W. Pike ; 
treasurer, Mr. John L. Odiorne, president of the common 
council. 

The general committee began its labors in the latter part of 
1895. Hearings were held at the city hall for the purpose of 
receiving suggestions as to the character and scope of the pro- 
posed celebration. Prominent citizens appeared before the 
committee with proposals. No one attempted to suggest a com- 
plete programme for the celebration, but particular features 
were recommended, many of which were incorporated in the 
official programme, as it was eventually adojjted. There was 
one suggestion upon which there was marked unanimity : it was 
urged that the celebration should be of such a character that 
it would be possible for all the peoi)le of the city to participate 
in it. The only way that this could be satisfactorily done, it 
was pointed out, was to have the major part of the celebration 
take place in the open air. 

The single obstacle to such a course was the season of the 
year in which the anniversary came. The act of incorporation 
was passed by the legislature, March 17, 1846, and the charter 
was accepted by the voters of Cambridge the following March 
30. Any outdoor exercises on either of these dates was ques- 
tionable. It was then decided to liave the celebration on the 
date of the fiftieth anniversary of the organization and meeting 
of the first city council. This fell on May 4. But the uncer- 

' President Fairbairn, Aldermen Keith, Wood, Bradford, and Rourke, 
and President Odiorne, Councihnen Reid, Beedle, Davis, Ahern, Willard, 
Allen, Whitmore, Parry, and Apsey. 

2 See p. 183. 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

tainty of the sirring weather finally led the committee to aban- 
don the idea of having- the exercises upon the anniversary of 
any particular day or days connected with the incorporation of 
the city. It was at last decided that the celebration should 
take place on June 2 and 3. The 17th and 30th of March, and 
the 4th of May, did not jjass unnoticed, however. The bells 
of the city were rung, at sunrise, noon, and sunset of each 
day, and on the latter date the illumination of the city hall 
tower began. The electrical words : " Fifty Years A City : 
1846-1896 " blazed forth each succeeding night till the cele- 
bration ended, at midnight, June 3. This pregnant phrase, as 
it illumined the heavens at night, soon burned itself into the 
popular mind. It passed from mouth to mouth. It appeared 
in the public print. It adorned the badges of the schoolchil- 
dren. It inspired public speakers and writers ; and, as its 
significance grew upon the minds of the people of Cambridge, 
it aroused and stimulated an ardent civic enthusiasm, which, 
gathering force as the days passed by, vented itself in the 
splendor of the two days' festivities. 

The official programme ^ was practically decided upon, and 
made public, in December, 1895. It was carried out, without 
any substantial change, on June 2 and 3. The opening exer- 
cises were held in the public schools. Then came the public 
meeting and oration, which was followed, on the second and 
final day, by the general exercises of a broadly j^ublic nature, 
— the civic and military parade, followed by a banquet to 
the guests of the city, the field sports, the tree-planting and 
children's entertainment on the common, closing with the re- 
ception at the city hall, and open-air displays of fireworks in 
the evening. After the adoption of the programme, the gen- 
eral committee, as a whole, did but little work. The prepara- 
tions for the festivities, and the execution of the plans for the 
celebration, were carried forward by a systematic arrangement 
of sub-committees. Among other things a press information 
bureau was established in connection with the mayor's office, 
and periodical bulletins concerning the anniversary event were 
sent to the newspapers of New England. The general com- 
mittee appropriated sums of money to the sub-committees, and 
they were given full power to carry out the particular feature 
or features of the celebration which had been delegated to them. 

1 See p. 187. 



10 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

The work of the sub-committee on the memorial volume may 
properly be noticed here, inasmuch as the labor of that com- 
mittee will not be mentioned elsewhere, as it formed no part 
of the two days' progi-amme of the celebration. At a meeting 
of the Citizens' Trade Association, held December 20, 1895, a 
committee was appointed to confer with the general citizens' 
committee in regard to the publication of an illustrated book, 
containing " statistics in relation to the city of Cambridge, 
showing its advantages as a place of residence, and for the 
establishment of business, and any and all knowledge, the pror 
mulgation of which would prove beneficial to the growth and 
general welfare of the city." The title of the memorial volume, 
which was subsequently published, was "The Cambridge of 
Eighteen Hundred and Ninetj^-Six," and it was edited by 
Arthur Oilman, A. M. It presented " A picture of the city 
and its industries fifty years after its incorporation, done by 
divers hands." The volume was made up of the voluntary 
contributions of some of the most eminent scholars and public 
men of Cambridge. It was divided into three main parts: 
The first part traced the history of Cambridge from its begin- 
ning to the very eve of the semi-centennial celebration. The 
second part pictured the Cambridge of the present ; and the 
third division was devoted entirely to the financial and manu- 
facturing life of the city. The memorial volume was the one 
phase of the celebration whicli will be permanent. The cele- 
bration itself consisted of transient festivities. Even the Me- 
morial Tree will die. But as long as men live, and as long as 
they prize the companionship of good books, the memorial 
volume, " the fruit of those sentiments of municipal pride 
which demand some permanent record of the good traits of a 
city loved," ^ will endure. 

The last meeting of the general committee was held Novem- 
ber 14, 1896. At that meeting a permanent committee ^ was 
ajipointed to conduct the sales of the memorial volume, and it 
was voted to give the proceeds to the Cambridge public library. 
It was also voted to publish an official account of the celebra- 
tion, — the volume now in the hands of the reader. 

1 Editor's preface, The Cambridge of Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-Six, 
p. iv. 

^ The mayor of Cambridge, ex-ojjicio, and the following citizens : Mr. 
George Rowland Cox, Mr. Henry O. Houghton, Mr. John L. Odiorne, 
and Mr. Russell Bradford. 




GENEIIAL ("OMMITTEE — WARD ONE 

Rev. D. N. Beach, D. D. 

Hon. W. B. Duiaiit K. B. James Col. T. W. Higginson 

Hon. C. H. Saunder.s Hon. W. E. Russell James J. Myers 

H. O. Hougliton Hon. John Reail Justin Winsor, LL. D. E. B. Hale 




GENERAL COMMITTEE- WARD TWO 

Hev. G. W Bkkiiell, D. D. 

Gen. E. R. Clmmplin George H. Cox George Close 

.lolni H. Connran Mason G. I'arker Hon. I.. M. Hannnm 

Benjamin G. Hazel William K. Thomas Rev. Tlionias Scully 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

This book is divided into three parts : The first contains a 
general descriptive narrative of the celebration. In the second 
division of the volume are gathered all the principal addresses 
of the celebration proper, together with the sermons and ad- 
dresses which were delivered in some of the Cambridge pulpits 
on the Sunday preceding the celebration, at the request of 
Maj^or Bancroft, the chairman of the general committee. It is 
worthy of note that, with but few exceptions, the churches of the 
entire city devoted a large part of their services on that day to 
extolling the virtues of Cambridge, and impressing upon the 
hearts of the people of the city the deeper significance of the 
celebration. 

Among others, the following clergymen of the city preached 
special sermons, in honor of the semi-centennial anniversary : 
Rev. Edward Abbott, D. D.,i of St. James's Episcopal Church ; 
Rev. George W. Bicknell, D. D.,^ of the First Universalist 
Church ; Rev. Alexander Blackburn, D. D.,^ of the First Baptist 
Church ; Rev. George Alcott Phinney,^ of the Grace Methodist 
Episcopal Church ; Rev. Isaiah W. Sneath, Ph. D.,^ of the Wood 
Memorial Church ; Rev. Alexander McKenzie, D. D.,^ of the 
First Church ; Rev. Frank Oliver Hall,^ of the Third Universal- 
ist Church ; Rev. J. V. Garton, of the Old Cambridge Baptist 
Church ; Rev. Charles F. Rice, D. D.,^ of the Epworth Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church ; Rev. C. M. Carpenter, of the Hope 
Congregational Church ; Rev. Charles H. Perry, of St. Peter's 
Episcopal Church ; Rev. Edward M. Gushee, D. D., of St. 
Philip's Episcopal Church ; Rev. Robert Walker,^ of the Church 
of the Ascension ; Rev. John O'Brien, of the Church of the 
Sacred Heart, and Rev. Theodore F. Wright, Ph. D.,io of the 
Church of the New Jerusalem. Rev. David N. Beach, D. D.,ii 
of Minneapolis, and Rev. George R. Leavitt of Beloit, Wis- 
consin, occupied their old pulpits, — the former at the Prospect 
Street Congregational Church, and the latter at the Pilgrim 
Congregational Church, — and both preached anniversary ser- 
mons. Special exercises commemorative of the anniversary 
were also held, as follows : at the North Avenue Baptist Church 
addresses were made by Mr. George A. Allison, Representative 
James J. Myers, and Hon. Chester W. Kingsley ; at the North 

1 See p. 46. 2 ggg p. 55. ^ g^e p. 08. ^ See p. 121. 

6 See p. 138. « gee p. 116. '' See p. 78. s See p. 133. 

9 See p. 146. i" See p. 158. " See p. 60. 



12 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

Avenue Congregational Church there were addresses by Mr. 
Warren F. Spalding, Professor Albert Buslinell Hart,^ of Har- 
vard University, and Mr. Frank Foxeroft ; at the Grace Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, addresses were made by Professor W. 
A. Sullivan, Mr. George R. Cook,^ general superintendent of 
parks. Dean Theodore F. Wright, of the New-Church Theo- 
logical School, and Mr. A. R. Sweetser, of Harvard University. 
At the Imnuinuel Baptist Church, the Sunday following the 
celebration, anniversary exercises were held, at which addresses 
were made by the pastor. Rev. Isaac W. Grimes, Edmund A. 
Whitman, Esq., and Professor Albert Bushnell Hart. ]Most of 
these sermons and addresses were delivered without manu- 
script, as, also, was a very large part of the speaking in the 
schools on the first day of the celebration. The editor of this 
volume has got together a considerable number of manuscripts ; 
and these, with newspaper reports of some of the other ad- 
dresses, amplified and revised, comprise the second part of the 
book. 

It is deemed best to group the addresses together,^ rather 
than to scatter them through the volume, in the order that they 
were given during the two days' exercises. The prime motive 
of the celebration was to show forth the civic virtues and the 
greatness of Cambridge. This was the keynote of all those 
who spoke in public during the celebration. The addresses 
that have been compiled embody the mature opinions of some 
of our deepest thinkers, as well as many of our representative 
citizens ; and it is hoped that the collection of these addresses, 
as they appear in this book, will prove an interesting, if not 
valuable, contribution to civic literature. 

The third section of the book contains the roster of the 
parade, the outdoor sports, — names of the winners, etc., — a 
facsimile of the official programme, the list of invited guests,"* 
and such other special features, connected directly or indirectly 
with the celebration, as should be permanently ])reserved. 

Neither expense nor effort has been spared to make this 
official account of the celebration accurate. But with an 
almost infinite mass of details, and the authenticity of many of 

1 See p. 90. 2 gee p. 71. 

* The oration, by John Fiske, LL. D., has the honor of the first place. 
The other addresses follow in alphabetical order. 

* See p. 179. 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

them dependent upon incomplete and inaccurate newspaper re- 
ports, the editor is painfully conscious of the utter improbability 
of the attainment of his ideal of exactness. 

The editor gratefully acknowledges the helpful suggestions 
and kindly assistance from many of the members of the general 
committee, and his thanks are due to those, both in public and 
private life, who have responded with unfailing courtesy to his 
many requests for information. He is especially grateful to 
his friend, Mr. George Rufus Cook, for his critical reading of 
the manuscript ; and to Mr. Arthur Gilman for valuable advice, 
and also for his reading of the final proof-sheets. The editor, in 
the preparation of this work, has striven to embody in these 
pages some fragment of that large and admirable public spirit 
which has become incarnate in the subtle, but potent, " Cam- 
bridge Idea." 



THE CELEBRATION. 



THE FIRST DAY. 



The clangor of the church bells on the still morning air 
heralded the beginning of the semi-centennial celebration of 
the incorporation of the city of Cambridge, at sunrise on the 
morning of June 2. The weather was fine. The atmosphere 
was kept clear by brisk northwest winds, and the sunshine 
flooded down from a sky in which blue and white were richly 
mingled. For several days the active preparations for the 
festivities had been going on. The committees on the celebra- 
tion had arranged their parts in the programme with minute 
care. Public buildings, places of business, and private resi- 
dences had been decorated, after the conventional style, and 
the bedecked city was resplendent with flags and bunting. 
Externally everything was in readiness. 

These outwai'd evidences of the celebration are noteworthy 
because they were the manifestations of that fine public spirit 
and municipal pride with which the people of Cambridge had 
entered upon the observance of their golden anniversary. This 
celebration spirit, which had been gathering force during the 
months of preparation, was quickened and vivified at a banquet 
at the Hotel Vcndome, Boston, on the eve of the celebration 
proper. This was a complimentary testimonial from the citi- 
zens of Cambridge to the Rev. David Nelson Beaeli, D. D. ; and, 
while the speeches by the prominent citizens on that occasion 
were not a part of the official observance, they nevertheless 
sounded the rich full chords of civic pride, and love for Cam- 
bridge, which vibrated with increasing melody throughout the 
succeeding two days. 

THE scnooLS. 

Cambridge was true to her traditions when she devoted the 
greater part of the first day to the schools. The schoolchildren 
were the first to be impressed with the true significance of the 



THE CELEBRATION. 15 

semi-centennial, and their youthful ears heard the first words 
of congratulation, of praise, and of civic patriotism. In the 
morning, the scholars in the public and parochial schools did 
honor to their prosperous city by formal exercises. The praises 
of Cambridge were recited and sung in prose and poetry. The 
exercises occurred in the school buildings, with one or two ex- 
ceptions, when the pupils of one or more schools were gathered 
in a neighboring church or park. They were all of a similar 
nature, including recitations from the writings of Longfellow, 
Lowell, and Holmes, and other Cambridge authors ; the reading 
of historical essays, written by the scholars ; the singing of pa- 
triotic songs ; and one or more addresses by prominent citizens. 

The speakers at the grammar schools were as follows : Agas- 
siz, Mr. Ray Greene Ruling, principal of the English High 
School ; Allston, Rev. Theodore F. Wright, Ph. D.,i dean of 
the New -Church Theological School, and Hon. Robert O. 
Fuller, of the School Committee ; Harvard, Rev. George H. 
Whitteraore, and Rev. Alphonso E. White, of the School Com- 
mittee ; Morse, Mr. William H. Whitney ,2 and Mr. George R. 
Cook, general superintendent of parks ; Peabody, Rev. Edward 
Abbott, D. D., rector of St. James's Church ; Putnam, Judge 
Charles J. Mclntire, and Mr. Theodore C. Hurd, clerk of 
courts of Middlesex County ; Shepard, Mr. Charles F. Wyman, 
of the School Committee ; Thorndike, Mr. George H. Howard,^ 
of the Cambridge Water Board, and Mr. Francis Cogswell, 
superintendent of schools ; Washington, ex-Mayor Charles H. 
Saunders,* and Rev. George W. Bicknell, D. D., of the First 
Universalist Church ; Webster, Richard H. Dana, Esq. ; Wel- 
lington, Rev. J. V. Garton, of the Old Cambridge Baptist 
Church, Dean Wright, and Superintendent Cogswell. 

The pupils in the primary schools were addressed, by the fol- 
lowing ladies and gentlemen: Miss Alice M. Longfellow, Mrs. 
J. H. S. Lansing, Mr. "Warren F. Spalding, Mr. Sanford B. 
Hubbard, Mr. Joseph J. Kelley, Mr. H. Porter Smith, Mr. W. 
R. Adams, Mr. Francis J. O'Reilly, Mr. Joseph A. Coolidge, 
Dr. W. H. Clancy, Councilman Cornelius Minihan, Mr. B. J. 
Brogan, Mr. John McSorley, Rev. George A. Phinney,^ and 
Rev. C. W. Biddle, D. D. 

The speaking at the schools, for the most part, was informal. 
All the speakers sought to impress the significance of the cele- 

1 See p. 156. - See p. 151. ^ See p. 101. * See p. 135. ^ See p. 120. 



16 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

bration upon the minds of the scholars ; and, by means of his- 
torical illustrations and personal reminiscences, held up before 
their young minds the grandeur and greatness of Cambridge. 
In general, one thought was dwelt upon : that the celebration 
was not held simply because Cambridge had been a city for 
fifty years, but that the Cambridge of that day was a city in 
which every one should feel a great pride, even to the small- 
est children in the kindergartens. A semi-centennial, it was 
shown, meant more to Cambridge than to most other cities, and 
the virtues peculiar to our municipality were set forth in 
exalted terms. Cambridge was held up to the children as a 
model of city government ; Cambridge as the seat of learning ; 
the home of poets, authors, and statesmen ; rich in the most 
precious historic associations ; the place which first responded 
to President Lincoln's call for volunteers to crush out a civil 
war ; Cambridge, the home of temperance, thrift, and good gov- 
ernment. These were some of the ideals presented to the school- 
children, and which they were exhorted to maintain and honor. 

The speakers were so tactful and so sincere that even the 
little ones in the primary gTades seemed to catch the true inspi- 
ration of the celebration. The following is an instance of how 
the youngest children were made to realize what it all meant. 

The speaker ^ began by explaining what birthdays were and 
the value of celebrating them. She next gave Cambridge a 
personality, the right to have birthdays following naturally. 
The children, in concert, then wished their city the conven- 
tional, " Many happy returns of the day ! " The rest of the 
address was a succession of pictures of what Cambridge could 
remember : First, the wilderness ; second, the coming and going 
of a people, the children of whom were little papooses and their 
mothers di^sky squaws, and whose life was a series of picnics ; 
third, a few families of white people, with great hopes in their 
hearts. That was the time the town began, a very little one, — 
a baby town, perhaps, — but with a head to make wise plans, 
and hands and feet to carry them out. Here a contrast between 
a governed and an ungoverned people was made ; and the dif- 
ference between good and bad government was pointed out. 
The growth of hamlet to village and village to town was traced, 
and it Mas shown that when the town became too large to man- 
age easily, city life began. All these were given as the birthday 
1 Mrs. J. H. S. Lansing, at the Reed Primary School. 



THE CELEBRATION. 17 

remembrances of the city of Cambridge. Then the best wishes 
from the people were alhided to ; it was shown how the " many 
happy returns " were to be secured ; and the talk closed with a 
picture of what love of city and country would make of such 
children as those in that primary school. 

THE AFTERNOON EXERCISES IN SANDERS THEATRE. 

The exercises in the afternoon were devoted exclusively to 
the older pupils. The scholars of the English High and the 
Latin schools, and the higher grades of the Parochial schools, 
met in Sanders Theatre at 3 o'clock. Mayor Bancroft ^ pre- 
sided, and addresses were made by President Charles W. Eliot,^ 
of Harvai'd University ; Judge Charles J. Mclntire,'^ of the 
Probate Court of Middlesex County; and Hon. Frank A. Hill,* 
secretary of the State Board of Education. The addresses were 
interspersed with musical selections by the High and Latin 
School orchestra, and the chorus of schoolchildren under the 
direction of Mr. Frederick E. Chapman. This meeting closed 
the formal exercises, designed primarily for the schools. In 
some respects it was the most impressive event in the celebration. 
The throng of young men and young women of Cambridge, old 
enough to appreciate the full import of the anniversary occasion, 
had their budding minds turned to the one hundredth anniver- 
sary of the city. The path of the half-century before them was 
pointed out by those who had helped to make and mould Cam- 
bridge in the fifty years then ending. There was mingled 
pathos and hope in the oft-expressed thought that 1946 would 
see the listeners at that Sanders Theatre meeting shaping the 
destinies of Cambridge, and the speakers of that afternoon 
would have then finished their life work. If the American re- 
public endures, the centennial anniversary of the incorporation 
of the city of Cambridge will probably be celebrated in the year 
1946. It needs no gift of prophecy to see one of the young men 
who were present at those Sanders Theatre exercises searching 
in his library for a little slip of paper that was handed him then. 
This card contains some comparative statistics of the schools 
of Cambridge, compiled by the superintendent of schools. The 
years 1845 and 1895 are contrasted. And at the end of 
another fifty years this little card will be in the hand of one of 
the speakers at Sanders Theatre, a tangible connecting link 
between the Cambridge of 1896 and the Cambridge of 1946. 
' See p. 56. « ggg p. 73. « See p. 108. * See p. 95. 



18 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 



THE PUBLIC MEETING. 
It was very fitting that the public jubilee meeting, which 
closed the exercises of the first clay's celebration, should have 
been held in Sanders Theatre. Whenever the people of Cam- 
bridge want inspiration from the past, and courage for the 
future, they seek that noble place of meeting. For half a gen- 
eration many memorable gatherings, more or less connected 
with the higher life of Cambridge, have been held there ; and 
it was toward Sanders Theatre, with its atmosphere of learning 
and patriotism, that the people of Cambridge turned on the 
night of June 2. Mr. George A. Allison, the chairman of the 
sub-committee, introduced Mayor Bancroft as the chairman of 
the meeting. The evening's exercises included a brief speech 
by Mayor Bancroft,^ an historical oration by John Fiske, 
LL. D.,2 an address by Rev. Alexander McKenzie, D. D.,^ and 
music by Thomas's Cambridge orchestra. The theatre was en- 
tirely filled with an audience of representative Cambridge men 
and women. Thus the first day closed, — the atmosphere of 
the city vibrant with expectation for the second day's festivi- 
ties ; and with the hearts of the children, as well as those of 
maturer years, burning with a stimulated municipal patriotism, 
and bright with newly awakened civic ideals. 

THE seco:nd day. 

A salute of fifty guns ushered in the second day of the cele- 
bration, June 3. The day was a fine example of June weather 
in its most agreeable mood. The sky was perfectly cloud- 
less, — an unbroken expanse of tender blue. The tempera- 
ture rose during: the forenoon from 52° at sunrise to 76° at 
noon, when the wind was blowing lightly from the west. The 
spirit of the anniversary permeated the whole city. The schools 
were closed. All business was suspended. The streets were 
alive with people. The doors of the city were thrown wide 
open, and Cambridge — a gracious hostess — welcomed the 
entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts as her guests. 

The people of Cambridge entered into the day's festivities 
with unbounded enthusiasm. This was to be the greater of 
the two days. It was the day for the people, — for all the 
1 See p. 58. « See p. 29. « See p. 111. 



THE CELEBRATION. 19 

people, and the humblest and the highest citizens were made 
to feel that they had a part in, and themselves were a part 
of, the celebration. Citizens vied with each other in their 
efforts to make the celebration a success, and to make it a 
memorable event in Cambridge history. Open house was the 
rule, not only in private residences, but in all the clubs and 
social organizations of the city. Indeed, many of the more 
notable societies of Cambridge devoted some part of the two 
days to special exercises in commemoration of the anniversary. 
The Cantabrigia Club, composed of the gentlewomen of the 
city, for instance, was conspicuously alert in entering into the 
spirit of the celebration ; and to the Colonial Club belongs 
the honor of having entertained, at lunch, the governor and the 
members of his staff. Upon every hand, and in innumerable 
ways, the people expressed their devotion to Cambridge, and 
manifested their deep interest in the anniversary of their city's 
beginnings. Besides the morning salute, the bells of the city 
were rung ; and the cannonading, mingled with the pealing of 
the bells, also marked high noon and the setting of the sun. 
But these were merely minor parts of the fete day. 

OUT-DOOR SPORTS AND GAMES.^ 

The out-door atliletic games and sports, which were held 
during the entire day, attracted large crowds of people. The 
entertainment at Cambridge Field (ward 2) began at 7.30 
o'clock in the morning, and continued till late in the afternoon. 
The entertainment on Rindge Field (ward 5) began at 8 o'clock. 
The entries, in many of the events, were open only to the resi- 
dents of Cambridge, and the programmes included both am- 
ateur and professional events. Suitable prizes were awarded. 
Music was furnished by military bands at both places. The 
large attendance at the athletic games indicated the deep inter- 
est in this part of the celebration. The crowds, although very 
enthusiastic, were quiet and orderly. 

Another large crowd witnessed the " play-out," ^ a friendly 
contest between two old-fashioned hand-engine companies, — the 
Red Jackets, of Cambridge, and the Salem Company, — which 
took place on Everett Street, late in the afternoon. The sham 
battle between Company B, First Regiment, M. V. M,, and a 
detachment from the Massachusetts Naval Brigade also at- 
1 See p. 176. 2 gge p. 178. 



20 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

tracted a throng of spectators, although this event was not 
upon the official programme. The evident pleasure which 
many thousands of the people got from these open-air enter- 
tainments fully justified the large part of the celebration 
which was devoted to them. 

THE PROCESSION.^ 

What the glistening white foam-crest is to the combing 
breaker, the civic and military parade was to the celebration. 
The enthusiasm, which had been gathering with tremendous 
force, reached its highest point in the pomp and splendor of 
the great pageant, and from then it gradually receded to the 
more quiet, but still brilliant end. The decorations were most 
profuse along the route of the procession, which was as fol- 
lows : — 

From Third Street, Cambridge Street, Windsor, Harvard, 
Columbia, Lafayette Square, Massachusetts Avenue, Lee, Har- 
vard Street, Harvard Square, Brattle Square, Brattle Street, 
Craigie, Concord Avenue, Bond, Garden, Linnsan, Massachu- 
setts Avenue to Cogswell Avenue ; countermarching to Massa- 
chusetts Avenue, Waterhouse, past Washington Elm to Sol- 
diers' Monument, for review. 

It was announced that the procession would start at 11 
o'clock. Acting Governor Wolcott and the other official 
guests who were to ride in the parade had been formally re- 
ceived at the city hall, earlier in the morning, by INIayor Ban- 
croft, the chairman of the general committee, Mr. Henry O. 
Houghton, the chairman of the citizens' committee, and other 
city officials. The formation of the entire procession, with the 
exception of the trades' division, which formed on Broadway, 
Harvard and Main streets, was made in East Cambridge, in 
a space less than one half of a mile square. The formation was 
executed with such promptness and precision that Chief Mar- 
shal Read gave his orders to march at the first stroke of the 
city bells striking 11 o'clock. Not only this, but the column 
moved with the same precision ; for every point along the line 
of march was passed exactly at the announced time. The 
column traversed seven miles of Cambridge streets. It took 
three hours in passing a given point, and it was about four 
miles long. A better idea of the length of the procession can 

1 See p. 163. 



THE CELEBRATION. 21 

be gained in the knowledge of the fact that after the head of 
the parade had gone over the entire line of march to North 
Cambridge, countermarching to the common, more than three 
of the divisions had passed in review while the trades' division 
was still passing up through Harvard Square. There were 
about twelve hundred horses and over ten thousand people in 
line. 

First came the platoon of police, mounted. Then came the 
chief marshal, Hon. John Read, and his staff. Next came the 
regimental escort, the entire Fifth Regiment, M. V. M., having 
volunteered its services for this duty, as a compliment to the 
colonel of the regiment. Mayor Bancroft. The First Corps of 
Cadets, escorting Acting Governor Wolcott, were next in line ; 
and following the long double column of carriages, with the 
invited guests, were the six large divisions : The first division 
was composed of militia companies, G. A. R. Posts, school 
cadets, and other organizations of a military or semi-military 
character. The second division was made up entirely of the 
students of Harvard University. In the third division were 
more militia organizations, the Cambridge police and fire 
departments, the veteran firemen, and representatives of the 
secret societies and clubs of the city. The fourth division 
included many of the Catholic organizations of Cambridge, 
and the fifth division was composed of the Cambridgeport 
Gymnasium Association and other organizations connected 
with St. Mary's parish. The sixth and last division was 
devoted to a trades' exhibit. In many respects it was the 
most striking and interesting part of the procession. The 
Citizens' Trade Association, in carriages, led the long display, 
in which were represented all the branches of trade and indus- 
try in the city. 

The parade, with its soldiery, civilians, and tradesmen, was 
the most ambitious affair of that nature that had ever been seen 
in the streets of Cambridge. From the moment the chief mar- 
shal gave the orders to march, on the very second of the 
announced hour, till the imposing and dignified review, as 
the parade was dismissed, nothing occurred to mar the perfect 
enjoyment of the greatest event of the celebration. The 
streets were filled with people, but there was no disorder. 
The temper and spirit of the waiting crowds were as sunny as 
the June day itself. There was a calm dignity resting over 



22 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

the whole occasion, as the long columns crept between the lines 
of patient but interested on-lookers. There was no more signi- 
ficant sentence uttered during the whole celebration, and none 
more expressive of the s})irit which actuates the people of Cam- 
bridge, than the words of President Eliot, after he had ridden 
over seven miles of Cambridge streets. " I never before received 
so strong an impression," said Dr. Eliot, " of the general cour- 
tesy and fine bearing of the men, women, and children of the 
city assembled in great numbers for a public festivity." 

THE children's ENTERTAINMENT AND THE MEMORIAL TREE. 

Three huge tents were pitched on Cambridge Common to 
accommodate the schoolchildren. At the request of the sub- 
committee on entertainment, the Cantabrigia Club had ap- 
])ointed a committee from its membership ^ to take charge of 
tlie cliildreu's entertainment. The exercises beffan at 12.30 
o'clock, when the granite tablet which marks the Memorial 
Tree was im veiled. The tablet bears the following inscrip- 
tion : — 

" On this spot 2 in 1630 stood an ancient oak under which 
were held colonial elections. This scion ^ of the Washinjrton 

' Mrs. Mary P. C. Billings, Mrs. William Goepper, Mrs. A. Packard, 
Mrs. G. F. Ford, Mrs. C. L. Edgerly, Mrs. J. B. Rice, Miss E. F. Blodgett, 
Mrs. W. O. Barbour, and Mrs. Alice Teele. 

^ The following letter proves the historic value of the place : — 

June 4, 1896. 
John J. Ahern, Esq., 

Sec. Committee on Tree, Semi-centennial Celebration. 
Dear Sir, — The spot in which the young elm tree is planted on Cam- 
bridge Common marks the location of the old oak tree mentioned in Doctor 
Abiel Holmes's " History of Cambridge " as the place where some of the 
early colonial elections were held. The spot was pointed out to me by my 
father when I was a lad, and your committee can be assured that you have 
■ now re-marked a most interesting historic place. 

JoTiN Holmes. 
2 The identity of the tree is established by the following letter : — 

Boston, Mass., May 28, 1896. 
Mr. G. R. Cook, 

Supt. of Parks, Cambridge, Mass. 

Dear Sir, — It gives me pleasure to present to the city of Cambridge 

the elm which you are to use in connection with the celebration of J\ine 3d. 

This elm is the only one I know of which is grafted from the Washington 

Elm, and I can certify most positively that this elm was grafted from wood 

taken from the old elm standing at the junction of Mason and Garden 




GENERAL COMMITTEE — WARD THREE 



John T. Sliea James M. Price James F. Aylward 

George H. Howard Josepli J. Kelley William Goepper 

John H. Ponce Hon. John W. Coveney 

Kev. John O'Brien Charles W. Dailey John S. Clary 




(iK.NKKAL COMMITTEE- WAl^l) FOlR 

Cl.arles W. CLeiu-y Job., D. liiUings Josepli V. Gibson 

Jobii Hopewell, .)r. Dr. Jaiiies A. Dow Isaac S. Pear 

Kamuiid Keaidoii William A. Mmiroe Warreu F. Spaldiug 

TbeoUore H. Rayiiioiid J. Lyniaii Stone 



THE CELEBRATION. 23 

elm was planted May, 1896." The tablet was unveiled by 
Hon. Chester W. Kingsley, who also delivered a short histori- 
cal address to the schoolchildreu.i 

One of the very inspiring incidents of the children's enter- 
tainment was the singing by several thousands of the school- 
children, under the direction of Mr. Frederick E. Chapman. 
In addition to " America," the " Cambridge Hymn," written 
by Mrs. Emma Endicott Marean for this part of the anni- 
versary celebration, was sung, as follows : — 

THE CAMBRIDGE HYMN. 

Tune : Flag of the Free. 

Fair on the sjght 

Dawneth a light, 
Heralding ages that yet are to be ; 

When every man, 

Earnest in plan, 
Steadfast for duty, life's purpose shall see. 
Noble the city, noble the state, 
When all her children, humble or great, 

Seek to repay 

Each in his way, 
Blessings unnumbered she lavishes free. 

Heirs of the past, 

We will hold fast 
All of the lessons she teaches to-day ; 

Giving in turn. 

Thus may we learn 
Calls of the future with joy to obey. 
City of freedom, city of peace, 
May all our lives thy honor increase ; 

Pledge we in truth, 

Now in our youth, 
Gladly to serve thee as years pass away. 

streets. It has always been marked in such a way that its identity cannot 
be questioned, and I am glad that the city will be able to plant it out and 
preserve it, so that when the original tree shall have departed, the city may 
have a living reminiscence of it for many years to come. 
Very truly yours, 

Shady Hill Nursery Co., 

E. L. Beard, President. 
1 See p. 106. 



24 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

In the tents, after the exercises at the tree, the ehiklren 
were amused and entertained with music, readings, and exhi- 
bitions of magic.^ Finally they viewed the procession from 
their point of vantage on the common. The tents were named 
" Camp 1946," in honor of the f utui-e men and women of 
Cambridge. 

THE BANQUET. 

The official guests of the city were entertained after the 
parade at a banquet in Union Hall. The affair was informal. 
Mayor Bancroft presided, and welcomed the guests. Speeches 
were made by Acting Governor Roger Wolcott,^ President 
Charles W. Eliot ^ of Harvard University, Mayor Josiah 
Quincy^ of Boston, and Rev. S. M. Crothers of the First 
Parish Church. There were about two hundred around the 
tables, including the invited guests. The gallery was open to 
women. The banquet, designedly, was given but little promi- 
nence in the programme of the celebration. 

THE RECEPTION AT CITY HALL. 

The public reception at the city hall was the closing social 
event of the celebration. The florists had decorated the inte- 
rior of the building with prodigal hands. The principal re- 
ception was held in the mayor's office, the receiving party 
including the following ladies and gentlemen : Mayor and Mrs. 
W. A. Bancroft, Mr. and Mrs. Henry O. Houghton, President 
and Mrs. Charles W. Eliot, Mr. Henry Thomas, Mayor Josiah 
Quincy, ex-Mayor and Mrs. J. M. W. Hall, ex-Mayor and Mrs. 
S. L. Montague, ex-Mayor C. H. Saunders, Miss Saunders, 
Mrs. Clapp, and Miss Bradford, daughter of ex-Mayor Isaac 
Bradford. 

At the same time, other receptions were in progress in the 
offices of many of the city departments, where the receiving 
parties comprised the commissioners and heads of departments, 
with their wives and ladies. The head ushers, Mr. Charles C. 
Read and Mr. William S. Hall, were assisted by a number 
of the representative young men of the city, including many 
Harvard undergraduates.^ Light refreshments were served. 

1 See p. 191. 2 See p. 154. ^ gee p. 76. ■• See p. 131. 

* Mr. L. V. P. Allen, Mr. Etlmand K. Arnold, Mr. L. F. Baldwin, Mr. 
Hugh Bancroft, Mr. S. F. Batcholder, Mr. Alexander Baxter, Mr. Stotigh- 
ton Bell, Mr. Leslie Bigelow, Mr. Shirley Boyd, Mr, Arthur II. Brooks, Mr. 



THE CELEBRATION. 25 

Music was furnished by Thomas's Cambridge orchestra ; and 
there was dancing. The reception lasted from 8 o'clock until 
10, and during that time several thousands were in attendance 
to exchange congratulations over the success of the celebration. 

THE FIREWORKS. 

While the reception was in progress at the city hall, thou- 
sands were enjoying the closing out-door events of the celebra- 
tion, — the fii-eworks displays. Two of these were given, — 
one on Cambridge Field (ward 2), and the other on Holmes 
Field (ward 1). Band concerts were given at each field, and 
great crowds of people were in attendance. 

The celebration had proclaimed to the world the glory of 
Cambridge. It closed with the peojile of all classes in the 
city participating in it. The two days' programme had been 
planned for the peoj)le, and by the people it had been carried 
out. The celebration had wrought a more unified Cambridge. 
It had brought the people together as they had never been 
before. They had been shown new possibilities in their own 
beautiful city, and their minds had been inspired with new and 
higher ideals of municipal life. The influence of the semi-cen- 
tennial celebration did not cease when the last spark flickered 
out in the soft night air of June, for the aroused and invig- 
orated civic patriotism will impress itself upon the future de- 
Frank Carney, Mr. George H. Carrick, Mr. A. S. K. Clark, Mr. B. G. Davis, 
Mr. George Doane, Mr. Clifford W. Dow, Mr. S. H. Dudley, Mr. William 
H. Evans, Mr. Howard B. Flint, Mr. Eliot H. Goodwin, Mr. A. G. Goodrich, 
Mr. Henry D. Green, Mr. W. A. Hayes, 2d, Mr. George B. Henshaw, Mr. 
Frank B. Hopewell, Mr. Edward R. Houghton, Mr. Freeman Hunt, Mr. 
Brooks Walker, Mr. Carroll Watson, Mr. Strafford Wentworth, Mr. Wil- 
liam R. Westcott, Mr. Austin T. White, Mr. James K. Whittemore, Mr. A. 
E. Jones, Mr. Arthur M. Jones, Mr. Lowell Kennedy, Mr. Eric A. Knud- 
son, Mr. Edward B. Lambert, Mr. Daniel J. Madden, Mr. P. J. Madden, 
Mr. R. J. Melledge, Mr. George F. McKelleget, Mr. Charles Mullen, Mr. 
William T. Neilon, Mr. George E. Norton, Mr. W. B. Odiorne, Mr. H. N. 
Parker, Mr. Henry L. Rand, Mr. W. L. Raymond, Mr. R, L. Raymond, Mr. 
J. Bertram Read, Mr. William Read, 2d, Mr. John J. Reardon, Mr. George 
E. Saunders, Mr. Huntington Saville, Mr. Herbert E. Sawin, Mr. P. P. 
Sharpies, Mr. George L. Smith, Mr. C. Lawrence Smith, Jr., Mr. Thorndike 
Spalding, Mr. J. William Sparrow, Mr. J. Lyman Stone, Mr. Milton J. 
Stone, Jr., Mr. Ezra R. Thayer, Mr. Sturgis Thorndike, and Mr. Charles 
Walcott. 



26 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

velopment of Cambridge, and help to keep the city true to 
its ideals. Cambridge lives not unto herself alone. Her 
unfolding has been a blessing to her people, to the American 
Commonwealth, to humanity ; and her future is pregnant with 
promise. 




GENERAL COMMITTEE- WARD FIVE 



Otis S. Brown 




David T. Dickinson 


Thomas F. Dolau 


George A. Allison 


Hon. Chester W. King.sley 


John E. Parry 


Dr. Charles Bullock 


John C. Watson 


Walter H. Lenied 


Stillnian 1"'. Kellej' 


Henry D. Verxa 




Alfred Borden, 2d Div. 
Edmund Reardon, 4th Div. 



CHIEFS OF DIVISIONS 

Charles H. Morse, Ist Div. 
Wm. A. Hayes, 'Jd, Cliief of Staff. 
Kdwaril H. Baker, Gth Div. 



George S. Kvans, 3d Div. 
Patrick Crowley, ."jtli Div. 



11. 



JOHN FISKE, LiTT.D, LL. D.i 

We have met together this evening on one of those occasions 
which keep recurring, for communities as well as for individ- 
uals, when it is desirable to take a retrospect of tlie past, to 
call attention to some of the characteristic incidents in our his- 
tory, to sum up the work we have done, and estimate the posi- 
tion we occupy in the world. As long as we retain the decimal 
numeration that is natural to ten-fingered creatures, we shall 
encounter such moments at intervals of half-centuries and cen- 
turies, and happy are the communities that can meet them 
without shameful memories that shun the light of history ; 
happy are the people that can look back upon the work of their 
fathers and in their heart of hearts pronounce it good ! What 
a blot it was upon the civic fame of every Greek community 
that took part in putting out the brightest light of Hellas in 
the wicked Peloponnesian War ! Can any right-minded Vene- 
tian look without blushing at the bronze horses that surmount 
the stately portal of St. Mark's ? — a perpetual memento of that 
black day when ravening commercial jealousy decoyed an army 
of Crusaders to the despoiling of the chief city of Christendom, 
and thus broke away the strongest barrier in the path of the 
advancing Turk ! What must the citizen of Paris think to-day 
of cowardly massacres of unresisting prisoners, such as hap- 
pened in 1418 and in 1792 ? Is there any dweller in Birming- 
ham who would not gladly expunge from the past that summer 
evening which witnessed the burning of the house and library 
of Dr. Priestley? From such melancholy scenes, and from 
complicity in political crime, our community, our neighbor- 
hood, has been notably free. The annals of Massachusetts 
during its existence of nearly three centuries are written in a 
light that is sometimes dull or sombre, but very seldom lurid. 
In particular the career of Cambridge has been a placid one. 
We do not find in it many things to startle us ; but there is 
much that we can approve, much upon which, without falling 

^ Oration delivered at the public meeting in Sanders Theatre, June 2. 



30 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

into the self-satisfied mood that is the surest index of narrow- 
ness and provincialism, we may legitimately pride ourselves. 
In commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the incorijoration 
of Cambridge as a city, a retrospect of the half-century is need- 
ful ; but we shall find it pleasant to go farther back, and start 
with a glimpse of the beginnings of our town. 

I came near saying " humble beginnings ; " it is a stock 
phrase, and perhaps savors of tautology, since beginnings are 
apt to be humble as compared with long-matured results. But 
an adjective which better suits the beginnings of our Cam- 
bridge is " dignified." Circumstances of dignity attended the 
selection of this spot upon the bank of Charles Kiver as the 
site of a town, and there was something peculiarly dignified in 
the circumstances of the change of vocation which determined 
the change in its name. The story is a very different one from 
that of the founding of towns in the Old World in the semi- 
barbarous times when the art of nation-making was in its 
infancy. In those earlier ages it was only through prolonged 
warfare against enemies nearly equal in prowess and resources, 
that a free political life could be maintained ; and it was only 
after numberless crude experiments that nations could be 
formed in which political rights could be efficiently preserved 
for the people. All the training that such long ages of turbu- 
lence could impart had been gained by our forefathers in the 
Ohl World. To the founders of our Cambridge it had come 
as a rich inheritance. They were not as the rough followers of 
Alaric or Ilengist. They had profited by the work of Eoman 
civilization, with its vast and subtle nexus of legal and political 
ideas. In the hands of their fathers had been woven the won- 
derful fabric of English law ; they were familiar with parlia- 
mentary institutions ; they had been brought up in a country 
where the king's peace was better j)reserved than anywhere else 
in Europe, and where at the same time self-government was 
maintained in full vigor. They had profited, moreover, by 
the scholastic learning of the Middle Ages and the Greek 
scholarship of the Renaissance, nor was the newly awakening 
s])irit of scientific inquiry, visible in Galileo and Gilbert, lost 
upon their keen and inquisitive minds. These Puritans, heirs 
to what was strongest and best in the world's culture, came to 
Massachusetts Bay in order to put into practice a theory of 
civil government, in which the interests both of liberty and of 



ORATION BY JOHN FISKE. 31 

godliness seemed to them likely to be best subserved. They 
came to plant the most advanced civilization in the midst of a 
heathen wilderness, and thus the selection of a seat of govern- 
ment for the new commonwealth was an affair of dignity and 
importance. 

Half a dozen towns, including Boston, had already been be- 
gun, when it was decided that a site upon the bank of Charles 
River, three or four miles inland, would be most favorable for 
the capital of the Puritan colony. It would be somewhat more 
defensible against a fleet than the peninsula of Boston and 
Charlestown. The war-ships to be dreaded at that moment 
were not so much those of any foreign power as those of King- 
Charles himself, for none could tell that the grim clouds of 
civil war then lowering upon the horizon of England and Scot- 
land might not also darken the coast of Massachusetts Bay. 
When the site was selected, on the 28th of December, 1630, 
it was agreed that the governor, deputy-governor, and all the 
Court of Assistants (except Endicott, already settled at Salem) 
should build their houses here. Fortunately no name was be- 
stowed upon the new town. It was known simply as the New 
Town, and here in the years before 1638 the General Court 
was several times assembled. During those seven years the 
number of Puritans in New England increased from about 
1500 to nearly 20,000. It was also clear that the king's 
troubles at home were likely to keep him from molesting Mas- 
sachusetts. With the increased feeling of security, Boston 
came to be preferred as the seat of government, and only two 
of its members ever fulfilled the agreement to build their 
houses in the New Town. 

The building of the New Town, however, furnished the occa- 
sion for determining at the outset what kind of government the 
Puritan commonwealth should have. It was to be a walled 
town, for defense against frontier barbarism of the New World 
type, not the formidable destructive power of an Attila or a 
Bayazet, but the feeble barbarism of the red men and the Stone 
Age, so that a wall of masonry was not required, but a wooden 
palisade would do. In 1632, the Court of Assistants imposed 
a tax of .£60 for the purpose of building this palisade, but the 
men of Watertown refused to pay their share on the ground 
that they were not represented in the taxing body. The ensu- 
ing discussion resulted in the establishment of a House of Depu- 



32 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

ties, in which every town was represented. Henceforth the 
Court of Assistants together with the House of Deputies formed 
the General Court. There was no authority for such a repre- 
sentative body in the charter, which vested the government in 
the Court of Assistants ; but, as Hutchinson tells us, the people 
assumed that the right to such representation was implied in 
that clause of the charter which reserved to them the natural 
rights of Englishmen. Thus the building of a wooden palisade 
from Ash Street to Jarvis Field furnished the occasion for the 
first distinct assertion in the New World of the principles that 
were to bear fruit in the independence of the United States. 

But the most interesting event in the history of the New 
Town before it became Cambridge was the brief sojourn of the 
Rev. Thomas Hooker and his company, from Braintree in Eng- 
land. In poi)ular generalizations it is customary to allude to 
our Puritan forefathers as if they were all alike in their ways 
of thinking, whereas in reality it would be difficult to point out 
any group of men and women among whom individualism has 
more strongly flourished. Among the numberless differences 
of opinion and policy, it was only a few — and mostly such as 
were related to vital political questions — that blazed up in 
acts of persecution. For the disorganization wrought by !Mrs. 
Hutchinson swift banishment seemed the only available remedy ; 
but slighter differences could be healed by a peaceful secession, 
which some people deprecated as the " removal of a candle- 
stick." Such a secession was that of Hooker and his friends. 
The difference between Hooker's ideal of sfovernment and Win- 
throp's has come to be recognized as in some measure fore- 
shadowing the different conceptions of Jefferson and Hamilton 
in later days. But of controversy between the two eminent 
Puritans only slight traces are left. One act of omission on the 
part of the friendly seceders is more forcible than reams of 
argument : the founders of Connecticut did not see fit to limit 
the suffrage by the qualification of church-membership. 

The removal of so many people to the banks of the Connecti- 
cut left in the New To^\-n only eleven families of those who liad 
settled here before 1635. But depopulation was prevented by 
the arrival of a new congregation from England. There stands 
on our common a monument in commemoration of John Bridge, 
who was for many years a selectman of Cambridge, and dwelt 
beyond the western limits of the town, on or near the site since 



ORATION BY JOHN FISKE. 33 

famous as the headquarters of Washington and the home of 
Longfellow. This John Bridge, deacon of the First Church, 
was one of the earliest settlers of the New Town, and one of 
the eleven householders that stayed behind, a connecting link 
between the old congregation of Thomas Hooker and the new 
congregation of Thomas Shepard. The coming of this eminent 
divine was undoubtedly an event of cardinal importance in the 
history of our community, for in the Hutchinson controversy, 
which shook the little colony to its foundations, his zeal and 
vigilance in exposing heresy were conspicuously shown ; and, if 
we may believe Cotton Mather, it was this circumstance that 
led to the selection of the New Town as the site for the pro- 
jected college. It was well for students of divinity to sit under 
the preaching of such a man, and of such as he might train 
up to succeed him. How vain were all such hopes of keeping 
this New English Canaan free from heresy was shown when 
Henry Dunster, first president of the college, was censured by 
the magistrates and dismissed from office for disapproving of 
infant baptism ! 

In the great English universities at that time Royalism 
and Episcopacy prevailed at Oxford, while Puritanism more or 
less allied with Republicanism was rife at Cambridge. Ever 
since the fourteenth century a superior flexibility in opinion had 
been observable in the eastern counties, whence came so many 
of the people that founded New England. Not only Hooker 
and Shepard, but most of our clergy, among whom individual- 
ism was so rife, were graduates of Cambridge. When it was 
decided that the New Town was to be the home of our college, 
it was natural for people to fall into the habit of calling it 
Cambridge ; and this name, so long enshrined already in their 
afPections, already made illustrious by Erasmus and Fisher, by 
Latimer and Cranmer, by Burghley and Walsingham and the 
two Bacons, by Edmund Spenser and Ben Jonson, — this name 
of such fame and dignity was adopted in 1638 by an order of 
the General Court. The map of the United States abounds 
in town names taken at random from the Old World, often 
inappropriate and sometimes ludicrous from the incongruity of 
associations. The name of our city is connected by a legiti- 
mate bond of inheritance with that of the beautiful city on the 
Cam. It was given in the thought that the work for scholar- 
ship, for godliness, and for freedom, which had so long been 



34 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

carried on iu the older city, was to be continued in the younger. 
The name thus given was a pledge to posterity, and it has 
been worthily fultilled. 

Into the history of the town of Cambridge during the two 
centuries after it received its name, I do not propose to enter. 
But a glimpse of its general appearance during the greater part 
of that period is needfid in order to give precision and the right 
sort of emphasis to the contrast which we see before us to-day. 
The Cambridge of those days was simply the seat of the college, 
not yet developed into a university. Within the memory of 
persons now living, Old Cambridge was commonly alluded to as 
" the village." In the original laying out of the township we 
seem to see a reminiscence of the ancient threefold partition 
into town mark, arable mark, and common. The " east gate," 
near the corner of Harvard and Linden streets, and the " west 
gate," at the corner of Ash and Brattle, marked the limits of 
the town in those directions. The town was at first comprised 
between Harvard Street and the marshes which cut off approach 
to the river bank. Afterward the " West End," from Harvard 
Square to Sparks Street, was gradually covered with home- 
steads. The common began, as now, hard by God's Acre, the 
venerable burying-ground, and afforded pasturage for the vil- 
lage cattle as far as Linnaean Street. The regions now occupied 
by Cambridgeport and East Cambridge contained the arable 
district with many farms, small and large, but everywhere salt 
marshes bordered the river and much of the country was a wild 
woodland. The tale of wolves killed in Cambridge for the year 
1696 was seventy-six, and a bear was seen roaming as late as 
1754. It was a rough country which the British first encoun- 
tered when they landed at Lechmere Point in 1775, on their 
night march to Lexington. Cambridge then turned its back 
toward Boston, to which the only approach was by a causeway 
and bridge at what we now call Boylston Street, and by this 
route the distance was eight miles, as we still read upon the 
ancient milestone in God's Acre. To complete our outline of 
the village, we must recall the principal public buildings, — 
the meeting-house, a little south of the site of Dane Hall, used 
both as church and as town-house until 1708, when a building 
was erected in the middle of Harvard Square to serve for towii 
meetings and courts. A little eastward, near the " east gate," 
stood the parsonage. The schoolhouse was behind the site of 



ORATION BY JOHN FISKE. 35 

Holyoke House ; the jail stood on the west side of Winthrop 
Square, which was then an open market. Between this market 
and Harvard Square, in the sanded parlor of the Blue Anchor 
Tavern, the selectmen held their meetings ; and on the corner 
of the street which still bears the name of Harvard's first presi- 
dent was something rarely to be seen in so small a village, 
the printing-press now known as the University Press, the only 
one in English America, until Boston followed the example in 
1676. 

Until the beginning of the present century these outlines of 
Cambridge remained with but little change, save for the build- 
ing of noble houses on spacious estates toward Mount Auburn 
in one direction and upon Dana Hill in the other. The occu- 
pants of many of these estates were members of the Church of 
England, and the building of Christ Church in 1759 was one 
marked symptom of the change that was creeping over the little 
Puritan community. It was a change toward somewhat wider 
views of life, and toward the softening of old animosities. In 
contrast with the age in which we live the whole eighteenth 
century in New England seems a slow and quiet time, when the 
public pulse beat more languidly, or at any rate less feverishly, 
than now. The people of New England led a comparatively 
isolated life. 

Thought in our college town did not keep pace with Euro- 
pean centres of thought, as it does in our day. There was less 
hospitality toward foreign ideas. Few people visited Europe. 
Life in New England was thrown upon its own resources, and 
this was in great measure true of Cambridge in the days when 
it was eight miles from Boston and indefinitely remote from the 
mother country. One of the surest results of social isolation 
is the acquirement of peculiarities of speech, most commonly 
shown in the retaining of archaisms which fashionable language 
has dropped. That quaint Yankee dialect, of which Hosea 
Biglow says that 

"For puttin' in a downright lick 

'Twixt Hnmbug's eyes, ther 's few can match it, 
An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick 

Ez stret-graiued hickory doos a hetchet ; " 

that dialect so sweet to the ears of every true child of New 
England, may still be heard if we go to seek it ; but in Lowell's 



36 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

boyhood it must have been a familiar sound in the neighbor- 
hood of Ehnwood. 

But the work done in this rustic college community, if done 
within somewhat narrow horizons, was eminently a widening 
and liberalizing work. The seeds of the nineteenth century 
were germinating in the eighteenth. Two or three indications 
must suffice, out of many that might be cited. In 1G69 there 
was a schism in the First Parish of Boston, brought about by 
an attempt to revise the conditions of church-membership, in 
order to obviate some of the difficulties arisinsr from the restric- 
tion of the suffrage to church-members, and the founding of the 
Old South Church by the more liberal party was a result of 
this schism. One hundred and sixty years later, in 1829, there 
was a schism in the First Parish of Cambridge, which resulted 
in the founding of the Shepard Church by the more conserva- 
tive party. The questions at issue between the two parties 
were the questions that divide Unitarian theology from Trini- 
tarian, and the distance between the kind of interests at stake 
in the earlier controversy and in the later may serve as a fair 
measure of the progress which the mind of Massachusetts had 
been making during that interval of a hundred and sixty years. 
In all that time the chief training school for the ministers by 
whom the speculative minds of Massachusetts were stimulated 
and guided was Harvard College. But it was here, too, that 
men eminent in civic life were trained ; and among the various 
illustrations of the type thus nurtured may be cited Samuel 
Adams and Thomas Hutchinson, foemen worthy of one another, 
Warren and Hancock, Jonathan Trumbull and John Adams. 
So far as New England was concerned, the chief work in 
bringing on the Revolution was done by graduates of Harvard. 
In the convention which framed our Federal Constitution, 
three important delegates were the Harvard men, Gerry, 
Strong, and King ; and in this connection one cannot fail to 
recall names so closely associated with our national beginnings 
as Timothy Pickering and Fisher Ames, nor can we omit the 
noble line of jurists from Parsons to Story, and so on to Curtis, 
whom so many of us well remember ; or going back to that 
Massachusetts convention, of which the work is commemorated 
in the name of Federal Street, we may single out for men- 
tion the great minister and statesman, type of what is best 
in Puritanism, Samuel West, of New Bedford. Such names 



ORATION BY JOHN FISKE. 37 

speak for the kind of quiet, miobtrusive work that was going 
on in Cambridge during those two centuries of rural existence. 
Such strengthening and unfolding of the spirit is the only work 
that is tridy immortal. In a town like ours the material relics 
of the past are inspiring, and it is right that we should do our 
best to preserve them ; but they are perishable. The gambrel- 
roofed house from the door of which President Langdon asked 
God's blessing upon the men that were starting for Bunker 
Hill, in later days the birthplace and homestead of our be- 
loved Autocrat, has vanished from the scene ; the venerable 
elm under which Washington drew the sword in defense of 
American liberty is slowly dying year by year ; but for the 
spiritual achievement that has marked the career of our com- 
munity there is no death, and they that have turned many to 
righteousness shall shine in our firmament as the stars for ever 
and ever. 

In contrasting the Cambridge of the nineteenth with that of 
the two preceding centuries, the first fact which strikes our 
attention is the increase in the rate of growth. In 1680 the 
population of Cambridge seems to have been about 850, and 
the graduating class for that year numbered five. In 1793 the 
population — not counting the parishes that have since become 
Brighton and Arlington — was about 1200, and there was a 
graduating class of 38. Thus in more than a century the pop- 
tdation had increased barely fifty per cent. In 1793 there were 
only four houses east of Dana Street, but that year witnessed 
an event of cardinal importance, the opening of West Boston 
Bridge. The distance between Boston and Old Cambridge 
was thus reduced from eight miles to three, and a direct avenue 
was opened between the interior of Middlesex County and the 
Boston markets. The effect was shown in doubling the pop- 
ulation of Cambridge by the year 1809, when another bridge 
was complete from Lechmere Point to the north end of Boston. 
These were toll bridges in the hands of private corporations, 
and their success led to further bridges, the one at River Street 
in 1811, the one at Western Avenue in 1825, and Brookline 
Bridge so lately as 1850. The principal thorovighfares south 
and east of Old Cambridge were built as highways connecting 
with these bridges ; thus River Street and Western Avenue 
were tributary to West Boston Bridge, and to that point the 
Concord Turnpike was prolonged by Broadway, the Middlesex 



38 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

Turnpike by llampsliire Street, and the Mcdford Road by 
Webster Avenue ; while Cambridge Street, intersecting these 
avenues, formed a direct thoroughfare from the Concord and 
Watertown roads to the northern part of Boston. The com- 
pletion of these important works led to projects for filling up 
the marshes and establishing docks in rivalry of Boston, — 
plans but very slightly realized before circumstances essentially 
changed them. 

In this way Cambridge, which had hitherto faced the Brigh- 
ton mainland, turned its face toward the Boston peninsida, and 
two new villages began to grow up at " the Port " and " the 
Point," otherwise Cambridgeport and East Cambridge. It was 
not long before the new villages began in some ways to assert 
rivalry with the old one. The corporation which owned the 
bridge and large tracts of land at Lechmere Point naturally 
wished to increase the value of its real estate. Middlesex 
County needed a new court-house and jail. In 1757 a new 
court-house had been built on the site of Lyceum Hall, but in 
1813 there was a need for something better; whereuijon the 
Leclmiere Point Corporation forthwith built a court-house and 
jail in East Cambridge, and presented them, with the ground 
on which they stood, to the county. In 1818 a lot of land in 
the Port, bounded by Harvard, Prospect, Austin, and Norfolk 
streets was appropriated for a pooi'-house. Soon afterward it 
was proposed to inclose our common, — which with the lapse of 
time had shrunk to about its present size, — and to convert it 
from a grazing ground into an ornamental park. The scheme 
met with vehement opposition, and the town-meetings in this 
growing community suddenly became so large that the old 
court-house in Harvard Square would not hold them. Accord- 
ingly a bigger town-house was built in 1832 on the eastern part 
of the poor-house lot, and thus was the civic centre removed 
from Old Cambridge. 

This event served to emphasize the state of things which had 
been growing up with increasing rapidity since the beginning 
of the century. Instead of a single \nllage, with a single circle 
of interests, there were now three villages, with interests diverse 
and sometimes conflicting as regards the expending of public 
money, so that feelings of sectional antagonism were develojxHi. 

In New England history the usual remedy for such a state 
of things has been what might be called " spontaneous fission." 



ORATION BY JOHN FISKE. 39 

The overgrown town would divide into three, and the segments 
would go on pouting at each other as independent neighbors. 
We need not be surprised to learn that in 1842 the people of 
Old Cambridge petitioned to be set off as a separate town ; but 
this attempt was successfully opposed, with the result that in 
1846 a city government was adopted. In that year the popu- 
lation had reached 13,000, and was approaching the point at 
which town-meetings become unmanageable from sheer bulk. 
For small communities Thomas Jefferson was probably right in 
holding that the town-meeting is the best form of government 
ever devised by man. It was certainly the form best loved in 
New England down to 1822, when Boston with its population 
of 40,000 reluctantly gave it up and adopted a representative 
government instead. The example of Boston was followed in 
1836 by Salem and Lowell, and next in 1846 by Roxbury and 
Cambridge. From that time forth the making of cities went 
on more rapidly. It was the beginning of a period of urban 
development, the end of which we cannot as yet even dimly 
foresee. This unprecedented growth of cities is sometimes 
spoken of as peculiarly American, but it is indeed not less re- 
markable in Europe, and it extends over the world so far as the 
influence of railroad and telegraph extends. The influence of 
these agencies of communication serves to diffuse over wide 
areas the effects wrought by machinery at different centres of 
production. With increased demand for human energy, the 
earth's power of sustaining human life has vastly increased, and 
there is a strong tendency to congregate about centres of pro- 
duction and exchange. In 1846 there were but five cities in 
the United States with a population exceeding 100,000 ; New 
York had not yet reached half a million. To-day New York is 
approaching the two-million mark, three other cities have passed 
the million, and not less than thirty have passed the hundred 
thousand. During this half-century the 18,000 of Cambridge 
have increased to more than 80,000. The Cambridge of to-day 
contains as many people as the Boston of sixty years ago. 

The causes of this growth of Cambridge might be treated, 
had we space for it, under three heads. Our city has grown 
because of its proximity to Boston ; it has grown by reason of 
its flourishing manufactures ; and it has grown with the growth 
of the university. That Cambridge should have shared in the 
general prosperity of this suburban region is but natural. But 



40 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

persons at a distance are apt to show surprise when we speak 
of it as a manufacturing city. This feature in our development 
belongs to the period subsequent to 1846, and has much to do 
with the growth of the eastern portions of Cambridge, where 
the combined facilities for railroad and water communication 
have been peculiarly favorable to manufactures. In the early 
part of this century the glass-works at East Cambridge, which 
have since departed, were somewhat famous, considerable manu- 
factures of soap and leather had been begun, and cars and 
wagons were made here. At the present time some of our chief 
manufactures are of engine boilers and various kinds of machin- 
ery, of which tlie annual product exceeds 12,000,000. Among 
the industries which produce in yearly value moi-e than 
$1,000,000 may be mentioned printing and publishing, musical 
instruments (especially pianos and organs), furniture, clothing, 
carpenter's work, soap and candles, biscuit-baking ; while 
among those that produce $500,000 or more are carriage-mak- 
ing and wheelwright's work, plumbing and plumber's materials, 
bricks and tiles, and confectionery. Not only our own new 
Harvard Bridge, but most of the steel railway bridges in New 
England, have been built in Cambridge. We supply a consid- 
erable part of the world with hydraulic engines, the United 
States Navy comes here for its pumps, and our pumping ma- 
chines may be seen at work in Honolulu, in Sydney, in St. 
Petersburg. In the dimensions of its pork-packing industry 
Cambridge comes next after Chicago and Kansas City. In 
1842 all the fish-netting used in Araei-ica was made in England ; 
to-day it is chiefly made in East Cambridge, which also fur- 
nishes the twine prized by disciples of Izaak Walton in many 
parts of the world. Last year the potteries on Walden Street 
turned out seven million flower-pots. Such facts as these bear 
witness to the unusual facilities of our city, where coal can be 
taken and freight can be shipped at the very door of the fac- 
tory, where taxes and insurance are not burdensome and the 
fire department is unsurpassed for efficiency, where skilled 
labor is easy to get because good workmen find life comfort- 
able and attractive, with excellent sanitary conditions and un- 
rivaled means of free education, even to the Latin School and 
the Manual Training School. It is well said, in one of the 
reports in our semi-centennial volume, that " to Cambridge 
herself, as much as to any other one thing, is the success of all 



ORATION BY JOHN FISKE. 41 

her manufacturing enterprises due, and all agree In acknow- 
ledging it." 

Among Cambridge industries, two may be mentioned as 
especially characteristic and famous. Of the printing estab- 
lishments now existing not many can be more venerable than 
our University Press, of which we have spoken as beginning in 
1639. Of the wise and genial foimder of the Riverside Press 
— who once was mayor of our city, and whose memory we love 
and revere — it may be said that few men of recent times have 
had a higher conception of bookmaking as one of the fine arts. 
These two institutions have set a lofty standard for the Athe- 
naeum Press, which has lately come to bear them company. 
The past half-century has seen Cambridge come into the fore- 
most rank among the few publishing centres of the world, 
where books are printed with faultless accuracy and artistic 
taste. 

The visitor to Cambridge from Bi'ookline, as he leaves the 
bridge at Brookline Street, comes upon a pleasant dwelling- 
house, with a private observatory, and hard by it a plain brick 
building. That is the shop of Alvan Clark and Sons, who 
have carried the art of telescope-making to a height never 
reached before. There have been made the most powerful 
refracting telescopes in the world, and one of the firm, more 
than thirty years ago, himself acquired fame as an astronomer 
for his discovery of the companion of Sirius. 

From this quiet nook in the Port one's thoughts naturally 
turn to the Harvard Observatory, which in those days the two 
Bonds made famous for their accurate methods of research 
and their discoveries relating to the planet Saturn. The hon- 
orable position then taken by the observatory has been since 
maintained, but as we note this, we find ourselves brought to 
the consideration of the university and its last half-century of 
growth. And here my remarks cannot help taking the form, 
to some extent, of personal reminiscences. 

When I first came to Old Cambridge, in 1860, it still had 
much of the village look, which it has since been fast losing. 
Pretty much all the spaces now covered by street after street 
of wooden Queen Anne houses, in such proximity as to make 
one instinctively look for the whereabouts of the nearest fire 
alarm, were then open, smiling fields. The old house where the 
Shepard Church stands was rural enough for the Berkshire 



42 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

Hills, and on the site of Austin Hall, in the doorway of a home- 
stead built in 1710, one might pause for a cosy chat with the 
venerable and courtly Royal Morse, whose personal recollec- 
tions went back into the eighteenth century. The trees on the 
Common were the merest saplings, but an elm of mighty 
sweep, whose loss one must regret, shaded the whole of Har- 
vard Square. Horse-cars came and went on week-days, but on 
Sunday, he who would visit Boston must either walk or take 
an omnibus, in which riding was a penance severe enough to 
atone for the sin. " Blue Laws " in the university were in 
full force ; the student who spent his Sundays at home in 
Boston must bring out a certificate showing that he had 
attended divine service twice ; no discretion was allowed the 
parents. 

College athletics were in their infancy, as the little gymna- 
sium still standing serves to remind us. There were rowing 
matches, but baseball had not come upon the scene, and foot- 
ball had just been summarily suppressed. The first college 
exercise in which I took part was the burial of the football, 
with solemn rites, in a corner of this Delta. On Class Day 
there was no need for closing the yard ; there was room enough 
for all, and groups of youths and maidens in light summer 
dress, dancing on the green before Holworthy, made a charm- 
ing picture, like that of an ancient May Day in merry England. 

The examination days which followed were more searching 
than at other American colleges. The courses of study were 
on the whole better arranged than elsewhere, but during the 
first half of the course everything was prescribed, and in the 
last half the elective system played but a subordinate part. 
The system of examinations did not extend to the Law School, 
where a simple residence of three terms entitled a student to 
receive the bachelor's degree. The library at Gore Hall had 
less than one fifth of its present volumes, with no catalogue 
accessible to the public, and one small table accommodated all 
the readers. For laboratory work the facilities were meagre, 
and very little was done. We all studied in a book of chem- 
istry ; how many of us ever really looked at such things as 
manganese or antimony ? For the student of biology, the 
provision was better, for the Botanic Garden was very helpful, 
and in the autumn of 18G0 was opened the first section of our 
glorious Museum. 



ORATION BY JOHN FISKE. 43 

Here one is naturally led to the reflection that in that day 
of small things, as some might call it, there were spiritual 
influences operative at Harvard which more than made up 
for shortcomings in material equipment. There is a kind of 
human presence, all too rare in this world, which is in itself a 
stimulus and an education worth more than all the scholastic 
artifices that the wit of man has devised ; for in the mere con- 
tact with it one's mind is trained and widened as if by enchant- 
ment. Such a human presence in Cambridge was Louis 
Agassiz. Can one ever forget that beaming face as he used to 
come strolling across the yard, with lighted cigar, in serene 
obliviousness of the university statutes ? Scarcely had one 
passed him, when one might exchange a pleasant word with 
Asa Gray, or descry in some arching vista the picturesque 
figures of Sophocles or Peirce, or turning up Brattle Street 
encounter, with a thrill of pleasure not untinged with awe, 
Longfellow and Lowell walking side by side. Li such wise 
are the streets and lawns of our city hallowed by the human 
presences that once graced them ; and few are the things to be 
had for which one would exchange the memories of those days ! 

My class of 1863, with 120 members, was the largest that 
had been graduated here. It would have been larger, but 
for the Civil Wai", and a period followed with classes of less 
than one hundred members, a sad commentary upon the times. 
Boundless possibilities of valuable achievement must be sacri- 
ficed to secure the supreme end, that the commonwealth should 
not suffer harm. How nobly Harvard responded to the de- 
mand is recorded upon the solemn tablets in this Memorial 
Hall. For those who are inclined to dally with the thought 
that war is something that may be undertaken lightly and with 
frolicsome heart, this sacred precinct and the monument on 
yonder common have their lesson that may well be pondered. 

The vast growth of our country since the Civil War has 
been attended with the creation of new universities and the 
enlargement of the old ones to such an extent as to show that 
the demand for higher education more than keeps pace with 
the increase of population. The last graduating class in our 
Quinquennial Catalogue numbered 350 members. The univer- 
sity contains more than 3000 students. The increase in num- 
ber of instructors, in courses of instruction, in laboratories and 
museums, in facilities and appliances of every sort, has wrought 



44 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

changes like those in a fairy tale. The Annual Catalogue is 
getting to be as multifarious as Bradsliaw's Guide, and a 
trained intellect is required to read it. The little coUege of 
half a century ago has bloomed forth as one of the world's fore- 
most universities. Such things can come from great opportuni- 
ties wielded and made the most of by clearness of vision and 
vast administrative capacity. 

To this growth of the university must be added the most 
happy inception and growth of Radcliffe College, marking as 
it does the maturing of a new era in the education of women. 
We may well wish for Radcliffe a career as noble and as useful 
as that of Harvard, and I doubt not that such is in store for it. 
A word must be said of the Episcopal Theological School, 
based upon ideas as sound and broad as Christianity ; and of 
the New-Church Theological School more recently founded. 
We must hail such indications of the tendency toward making 
our Cambridge the centre for the untrammeled study of the 
most vital pi'oblems that can occupy the human mind. 

But the day we are celebrating is a civic, not a university 
occasion, and I must dwell no longer upon academic themes. 
We are celebrating tlie anniversary of the change which we 
once made from government by town-meeting to city govern- 
ment. Have we good reason for celebrating that change? 
Has our career as a civic community been wortliy of approval ? 
In answering this question I shall not undertake to sum up the 
story of our public schools and library, our hospital and charity 
organizations, the excellent and harmonious work of our 
churches Protestant and Catholic, our Prospect Union warmly 
to be commended, our arrangements for water supply and sew- 
age, and our admirable ])ark system (in which we may express 
a hope that Elm wood wiU be included). This interesting and 
suggestive story may be read in the semi-centennial volume, 
" The Cambridge of Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-Six," just 
issued from the Riverside Press. It is an enlivening story of 
progress, but like every story it has a moral, and I am going to 
pass over details and make straight for that moral. Americans 
are a bragging race because they have enjoyed immense oppor- 
tunities, and are apt to forget that the true merit lies not in the 
opportunity, but in the use we make of it. Much gratifying 
progress can be achieved in spite of the worst sort of blunder- 
ing and sinning on the part of governments. The greater part, 



ORATION BY JOHN FISKE. 45 

Indeed, of human progress within historic times has been thus 
achieved. A good deal of the progress of which Americans are 
wont to boast has been thus achieved. Now the moral of our 
story is closely concerned with the fact that in the city of Cam- 
bridge such has not been the case. Our city government has 
from the outset been upright, intelligent, and helpful. We are 
satisfied with it. We do not wish to change it. Now in this 
respect the experience of Cambridge is very different from that 
of many other American cities. The government of our cities 
is acknowledged to be a problem of rare difficulty, so that it 
has begun to seem a natural line of promotion for a successful 
mayor, to elect him governor, and then to send him to the 
White House ! In some cities one finds people inclined to give 
up the problem as insoluble. I was lately assured by a gentle- 
man in a city which I will not name, but more than a thousand 
miles from here, that the only cure for the accumulated wrongs 
of that community would be an occasional covj) d'etat^ with 
the massacre of all the city officers. So the last word of our 
boasted progress, when it comes to municipal government, is 
declared to be the Oriental idea of " despotism tempered by 
assassination " ! Now to what cause or causes are we to ascribe 
the contrast between Cambridge and the cities that are so 
wretchedly governed? The answer is, that in Cambridge we 
keep city government clear of politics, we do not mix up muni- 
cipal questions with national questions. If I may repeat what 
I have said elsewhere, " since the object of a municipal election 
is simply to secure an upright and efficient municipal govern- 
ment, to elect a city magistrate because he is a Republican 
or a Democrat is about as sensible as to elect him because he 
believes in homoeopathy or has a taste for chrysanthemums." 
Upon this plain and obvious principle of common sense our 
city has acted, on the whole with remarkable success, during its 
half-century of municipal existence. The results we see all 
about us, and the example may be commended as an object- 
lesson to all who are interested in the most vital work that can 
occupy the mind of an American, — the work of elevating the 
moral tone of public life. For it is neither wealth, nor power, 
nor cunning, nor craft that exalts a nation, but righteousness 
and the fear of the Lord. 



REVEREND EDWARD ABBOTT, D. D.i 

" Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify 
that we have seen ; and ye receive not our witness." — John iii. 11. 

In the trial of the Christian religion at the bar of public 
judgment, to determine the reality of its historical facts and the 
truthfulness of its teachings, there are two chief witnesses for 
the defense. For the establishment of the historical facts we 
depend on testimony, but for the truthfulness of its teachings 
upon experience. The great and final appeal of Christianity is 
to consciousness. " We speak that we do know, and testify that 
we have seen." This is the twofold declaration of every one 
who stands forth before men as a witness for the kingdom of 
God. It was the declaration of. Him who is the supreme wit- 
ness of God to men. It was the declaration of the apostles and 
prophets, of Isaiah and St. Paul, of the fathers and martyrs, as 
it has been of reformers and missionaries ; it is the universal 
declaration of all who, in different parts of the world and at 
different ages, have borne witness to the religion they professed, 
and have sought to make a new and deeper place for it in the 
hearts and lives of mankind. 

It was to bear such witness to the great facts and truths of 
the Christian religion, and to enjoy to the utmost the privileges 
and blessings of that in which they believed and to which they 
thus bore witness, that our New England fathers crossed the 
sea and founded in what was then a wilderness, unsettled and 
even unexplored, a new political and religious order. In poli- 
tics these fathers, from whom we have inherited the privileges 
we enjoy to-day, were dissenters from the established state of 
England upon such points as the claims of kings and the right 
of the few to govern the many, and they contended for the prin- 
ciple that all men are born free and equal, and are invested 
with the right of self-government as an inalienable possession. 
The history of their experiment has not yet proved the sound- 
* Sermon preached at St. James's Church, May 31. 



EDWARD ABBOTT. 47 

ness of the principle, and it remains to be seen whether govern- 
ment by a pure democracy is the form of government which is 
best suited to the nature of mankind, and the one that can best 
bear the tremendous strain to which government must be sub- 
jected by tlie passions of the human heart. In religion the 
differences of our fathers with the establishment in their native 
land were not so much differences of doctrine as they were dif- 
ferences of organization and administration. Generally speak- 
ing they had no quarrel with the theology of the Church of 
England ; what they disliked was the outward constitution of 
that church, — its episcopate, its lifeless formalism, its empty 
sacramentalism, — and what they rose against was the worldli- 
ness, the sordidness, the heartlessness, the immorality of its clergy. 
All these things they proposed to leave and did leave behind 
them when they crossed the sea to find a new home in the new 
world ; but the truth as it is in Jesus, the truth to which the 
Scriptures bore witness, the truth into which they had been 
born and baptized, and which had been sealed in the blood of 
generations, they clung to as their most precious property, and 
that they brought with them, if they brought anything with 
them, to be their light in the dark places of the wilderness and 
their strength and comfort in the arduous and perilous under- 
taking to which they had devoted their fortunes and their lives. 
" We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen," 
these men most confidently declared, " and because ye receive 
not our witness " we turn from you to build up on new ground 
a new social and religious fabric that shall fulfill our vision of 
the truth of God. 

We here to-day of this communion, which represents in its 
historical and corporate capacity the body out of which these 
New England fathers came, can rejoice over and for all in which 
they and we agree, and there is no point at which that agree- 
ment is more marked, emphatic, or unalterable than that pro- 
found, fundamental, and all-embracing truth, the doctrine of 
the Trinity, the commemoration of which we reach on this Sun- 
day in the course of our Christian year. Nor is there any geo- 
graphical point in all our New England field — indeed, in the 
whole American field — with which that doctrine, and the wit- 
nesses to it, and the experience and life and service that grow 
out of it, are more closely and inseparably associated than our 
city of Cambridge. The city of Cambridge, and the institu- 



48 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

tions which have distinguished it, and the contributions it has 
made to the growth of national character and life, are a distinct 
fruit of the Trinitarian planting here more than two hundred 
and sixty years ago. And so it comes to be that on this eve of 
the fiftieth anniversary of the chartering of Cambridge as a 
city, and in the discharge of the duty which this pulpit in com- 
mon with the other pulpits of the city owes to this event, I may 
rightly ask your attention to this single point, and attempt to 
combine the observance of Trinity Sunday and the civic anni- 
versary in one. 

I, therefore, lay down this proposition and proceed to speak 
to it, namely, that Cambridge was founded in the faith of the 
great truth which we signalize to-day, and that the institutions 
which have given the town its fame were originally and imme- 
diately conceived and born in this faith, and designed to serve 
and extend it, and the religious system which centres in it, in 
the development of the new world. 

Looking upon the letter of history, the intention in the plant- 
ing of Cambridge was the establishment of " a fortified place " 
for the better protection of the infant colony then springing 
up along the shores of Massachusetts Bay, and as a more secure 
site for the seat of government which at first had been located 
on one of the other sides of the bay. But looking beneath the 
letter in search of the spirit that actuated and guided these 
pioneers, it is not difficult to discover, and the discovery is con- 
firmed by the first steps in the history of the " New Town " 
as it was called, that the destiny of Cambridge was to serve as 
a " Fortified Place " in the spiritual sense as well, for the de- 
fense, the promulgation, and the perpetuation of the great re- 
ligious truths, and of the religious system wrought out of them 
and upon them, loyalty to which had torn these men from their 
old home and brought them over to a new one. 

Six events in the early history of Cambridge determined its 
character and settled its future for all time. They aU occurred 
within the first thirty years of its corporate life, and so may be 
regarded as its foundation stones. And as the position of the 
foundation stones of a building fix its outlines, and their strength 
and solidity and the care with which they are laid govern the 
durability and usefulness of the structure that is raised upon 
them, so these six events thus early fixed what the Cambridge 
of the future was to be. We are living as we are, because of 



EDWARD ABBOTT. 49 

them, to-day. Our town is what it is now because of what was 
done then. And those six events were as follows : — 

1. The planting of a Christian church. I use the word 
" church," not in its general and historical, but in its local and 
accommodated sense. To the New Town, as it was at first 
called, removed from Mount Wollaston what was known as the 
Braintree Comi^any, which was, in fact, a fully organized Chris- 
tian congregation, with its own minister, the Kev. Thomas 
Hooker. A meeting-house was built, and Mr. Hooker and his 
assistant, Mr. Stone, were regularly installed. Thus began the 
religious life of the New Town. It was begun upon a Trini- 
tarian foundation. An Episcopal church it certainly was not, 
but it and the religious society which succeeded it under the 
ministry of the Rev. Thomas Shepard, when the former re- 
moved to Connecticut, stood distinctly for the evangelical 
faith, the corner stone of which was the doctrine of the Trinity. 

2. The second event was the founding of Harvard College. 
In 1637, before the New Town had rounded out a week of 
years, the General Court designated it as the seat of the col- 
lege, the instituting of which it had agreed upon the year 
before ; and when in 1G38 the name of Cambridge was substi- 
tuted for that of Newtowne, and John Harvard of Charles- 
town, dying, bequeathed his library and other endowment to 
the new college, the conditions of propriety were complete for 
giving it its name, and Harvard College it formally became by 
act of the legislature in 1639. In the course of its history 
Harvard College has had three seals. The motto of the first of 
them was " Veritas," that of the second " In Christi Gloriam," 
that of the third " Christo et Ecclesia," and the latter is the 
seal that is in use to-day. A seal is a very sacred and solemn 
instrument. It is a sacramental form. It is the outward and 
visible sign of an inward and spiritual principle. To flourish 
a seal, to the pledge of which the user does not profess or pro- 
pose to conform, is a species of dishonesty which it would be 
hard to excuse. Until Harvard College changes its seal, that 
seal and its predecessors bear witness to the ideas to which it is 
consecrated, and those ideas are rooted in the Evangelical doc- 
trines that centre around the cross and are grounded in the 
doctrine of the Trinity and the related truths of the incarna- 
tion and atonement. " The Trutli," the " Glory of Christ," 
and " Christ and the Church," these are the basal rocks on 



60 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

which our great university, historically, theoretically, and pro- 
fessedly rests. Only as it is true to the function set forth in 
these terms is it true to the intentions of its founders. A 
century ago, the institution passed as a Unitarian institution. 
The policy, if not the boast of its government to-day, is to 
make of it an un-religious institution having no doctrinal or 
ecclesiastical relation whatsoever. But its history and its herit- 
age anchor it to Christ, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and 
forever, the eternal and incarnate Son of God, and to the 
church which He has purchased with His own blood, and to the 
truth of which that church is the pillar and the ground, and 
to the glory of Christ, of which it is the body ; and every 
officer who attemjits to swing the college away from that moor- 
ing, every teacher who uses his high position and opportunity to 
sow the seeds of agnosticism, of doubt, of unbelief, is perverting 
a high and solemn trust of which the college is the expression. 
Once more, let us hope and jjray, may Harvard College respond 
to her original constitution, and proceed to the fulfillment of 
her glorious destiny, and become the Christian and church 
college of the country, dedicated in deed and in truth to Him 
who is the manifestation of God to the world. 

3. The third event was the Cambridge Synod. In 1G37 the 
town was the scene of the first general council of the New 
England churches, as at the beginning of the fourth century 
the Asiatic city of Nicaa was the scene of the great council of 
Nice, and this, as was that, was for the settlement of disputed 
questions of doctrine, the condemnation of erroneous opinions, 
and the declaration of the orthodox faith. In matters of 
order, I repeat, the New England churches were far from being 
in accord with the Church of England, but in matters of faith 
they were largely at one, and so far as doctrine is concerned 
the Cambridge Platform, as it is known, put forth by the New 
England churches in 1637, here in this town of ours, was the 
first authoritative utterance of the organized religious life of 
the colonies, and it was indisputably sound and true u])on the 
great central proposition which we commemorate to-day ; an 
unequivocal confession of the true faith, acknowledging the 
glory of the eternal Trinity and in the power of the divine 
majesty worshiping the Unity, and a prayer that God would 
keep his people who should gather here steadfast in this faith 
unto the end. 



EDWARD ABBOTT. 51 

4. Tlie fourth event was the planting of the priuting-press. 
This mighty engine of modern civilization was then little more 
than a hundred years old. It was yet rude and awkward, but 
it was already a power. The printing-press in Cambridge, 
which was set up here in 1G38 or early in 1639, was the first 
press known in the English colonies of North America. For 
nearly forty years it was the only printing-press in New Eng- 
land. And from 1640 to 1675 the printing-press of Cambridge 
did all the printing for America. It was distinctively a college 
press. It was set up in the president's house, and it was run 
more or less under the president's supervision. It was a part 
of the machinery for serving Christ and the church. It, like 
the college, was dedicated to truth. Its function was to ad- 
vance the greater glory of God in Christ. 

5. The fifth event was John Eliot's mission to the Indians. 
Roxbury, it is true, may claim the honor of having been John 
Eliot's home, and the scene of his first official labors ; but his 
first service with the Indians, his first sermon to them, the first 
evangelical sermon on this continent in the heathen tongue, the 
first evangelical mission, in fact, to a heathen people in modern 
times, belongs to Cambridge, for it was within the limits of 
what was then the town of Cambridge that, on the 16th of 
October, 1646, on the south side of the Charles River, within 
the present limits of Newton, which was then a part of Cam- 
bridge, Eliot gathered his red friends about him, explained 
to tliem the truths of the gospel, and applied them to the con- 
ditions and needs of his dusky hearers. The faith and fervor 
of one who accepted, believed in, and lived by the revelation 
of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost inspired and guided this first 
attempt to reach the untutored children of the forest with the 
good news of redemption in Jesus Christ. 

6. And the sixth and last event — a brace of events, to 
speak more exactly — was the printing, first, of the Bay Psalm 
Book, and second of Eliot's Indian Bible, the distinct purposes 
of which must have been the promotion of the glory of God 
by means of Christian praise, and the opening of that Bible 
and of all the truths which it contains to the knowledge of a 
race otherwise sitting in darkness. 

Such were the events which stamped Cambridge with its 
early character and gave it its bent, — a bent which it has fol- 
lowed largely to this day. These are the institutions to which, 



52 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

with what has grown out of them, and with the men who have 
adorned them, we owe our honors. In many other respects 
Cambridge cannot vie with other of the suburbs of the New 
England capital. We have not the tide-water facilities which 
Charlestown enjoys. We have not the natural attractions of 
Dorchester or West Roxbury, or the Newtons. Our streets 
cannot be compared with some of those of Brookline, nor our 
mansions with those which cluster on the hillsides overlooking 
the Chestnut Hill reservoir. What is it that gives Cambridge 
her prestige ? Is it not such institutions, such events, such 
histories, such lives, as those that have been mentioned here? 
It is the human in the landscape that gives it its beauty and 
charm. It is not that England is more attractive pictorially 
that we are drawn to it year after year, and love to wander 
through its crowded cities or lose ourselves in its green fields 
and leafy lanes. It is because P^ngland is the home of 
Chaucer, and Shakespeare, and IMilton, and George Herbert, 
and Wordsworth, and Dean Stanley, and Charles Kingslc}', 
and Canon Liddon, and Thomas Hughes. It is because of 
the institutions, the events, the lives that have illuminated 
English history and the English landscape, that we love to 
visit her over and over again. And it is the same sort of 
history, on a smaller scale, of course, and within a narrower 
limit of time, that has made Cambridge what she is, and en- 
deared her to our hearts and matle us proud of our citizenship. 
The town where the first Christian college in the land was 
planted, where the first chui-ch council was held and the first 
platform of Christian doctrine was promulgated, where the first 
printing-press was set up and the first book printed, and that 
book a book of ])salms for the greater and more fitting praise 
of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and where the first 
mission was preached to the Indians in the gospel tongue, — 
that must ever be the foremost town in all the land. 

Others may be older, larger, richer, finer, but none can be 
greater in the moral sense. And when we add to all this the 
fact that this town and these its historic institutions were out- 
growths and expressions, natural, distinct, and explicit, of the 
Trinitarian doctrine of the Church of England, and that for 
more than a himdred years no question w'as ever so much as 
raised as to the Scriptural character of that doctrine, or the 
importance of it, or its obligations on the conscience and lives 



EDWARD ABBOTT. 53 

of men, there has been added the final thought which makes 
all this review most natural and appropriate on this particular 
Sunday of our Christian year. For until little more than two 
generations ago Cambridge was a Trinitarian town. There has 
always been Unitarianism in the Christian church from the 
time of the Arian controversy down, but hardly to organize 
itself and lift up its head as an ecclesiastical force until com- 
paratively recent times. A hundred years ago, or a little more, 
it became a visible and organic reality by capturing King's 
Chapel in Boston, until then a house of worship of the Church 
of England ; setting aside the Book of Common Prayer up to 
that time in use in its worship, and. substituting for it a spuri- 
ous prayer book from which all recognition of the Holy Trinity 
had been carefully expunged. Then presently followed the 
formation of a Unitarian Association, and the line of demarca- 
tion between those who held to the old, traditional, and historic 
faith, and those who rejected it, became definite and divisive. 
It was a slow process. Exchange of pulpits gradually ceased 
between the ministers who stood on the opposite sides of this 
dividing line. The line ran in and out among all the parishes 
of the standing order, the Congregational throughout New 
England, and Cambridge was one of the points at which its 
manifestation and the consequences became peculiarly conspic- 
uous. Of the First Parish at Harvard Square, dating from 
the founding of Cambridge, Dr. Abiel Holmes, the father of 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, was then the pastor, living in the old 
gambrel-roofed house where the law school now stands. Dr. 
Holmes stood by the Trinitarian theology. Some of his peo- 
ple went the new way. 

A rupture ensued. The difficulty was increased by the com- 
plicated relation then existing between the church and the " so- 
ciety," so called. The rupture ended in a split. The pastor 
and the church, properly so called, went out, and went on their 
evangelical way, according to the faith of their Cambridge 
fathers, their English fathers, and, as they understood it, the 
long line of fathers reaching back to apostolic times, to the 
New Testament Scriptures, and to the witness of our Lord and 
Saviour, Jesus Christ ; while the society remained in possession 
of their corporate name and of the house of worship, and had 
their own way with the doctrine. The Shepard Congrega- 
tional Church, under the Washington Elm, and the First Parish 



54 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

meeting-house, just at the upper entrance of Harvard Square, 
are the visible representatives to-day of these two separated 
bodies, attest their schism, at the beginning of this centur}', 
and stand as monuments, the one of loyalty, the other of dis- 
loyalty, to the accepted and transmitted teachings of the Chris- 
tian Church on the great point which is before our minds 
to-day. For more than a hundred years there had been but 
one religious organization in the town, the one which was now 
rent in twain by the wave of Unitarianism which was sweeping 
over New England. In 1757 Christ Episcopal Church had 
been planted by its side as a mission of the Church of England. 
These two organizations lield the town between them until, in 
1808, a third society was formed in Cambridgeport in the 
Unitarian interest, and the division of the old parish followed 
as above outlined, in 1829, A First Baptist Church was formed 
in 1817, a First Methodist in 1818, a First Universalist in 1822, 
and a First Roman Catholic in 1841 ; but the Unitarian devel- 
opment was a distinct divergence from the original foundation 
of the town, and that foundation had then been faithfully ad- 
hered to, as has been seen, for nearly two hundred years. 

And so to-day, standing, as we do, on the historic grounds 
which the Church of God has occupied from the beginning, we 
join in the grateful and proud commemoration of the completion 
of the first half-century of our life as an incorporated city. 
AVe do not, we cannot, forget the rock from which we were 
hewn and the pit from which we were digged. We cannot and 
we will not forget the faith which the fathers of our city held, 
which they brought with them from their home beyond the sea, 
which they held dearer than life itself, which they proposed to 
hold to the end, and to defend if need be with their lives. "We 
do not forget, wliat is really the glorj'" of Cambridge, the insti- 
tutions to which her early life was dedicated, and the lives and 
works wliich have gilded her name with lustre wherever it is 
known. The pure fame of Longfellow and Lowell and Holmes, 
the long-continued, wide-spread, and still extending influence of 
her gTcat university throughout the entire land, the dissemina- 
tion of a wholesome literature to which she has so materially 
contributed, these and such as these are her titles to honorable 
mention as she passes this milestone and rounds out the first 
half-century on her way. What is before us we little know. 
But this we do know, that the secret of prosperity in the future, 



EDWARD ABBOTT. 55 

as the secret of influence and power in the past, must be found 
where our fathers found it, in the fidelity of our thinking and 
our living to the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, the great revealer 
of God to man. Well might we raise, as the crowning feature 
of the decorations which are to enliven the scenes of the week 
upon which we have entered, one grand and all-enclosing arch 
of triumph, on whose span should be inscribed in august pre- 
eminence the sublime words in which are concentrated the de- 
votions of this day : — 

" Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy 
servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge 
the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine 
Majesty to worship the Unity ; We beseech thee that thou 
wouldest keep us steadfast in this faith, and evermore defend 
us from all adversities, who livest and reignest, one God, world 
without end." 



HONORABLE WILLIAM AMOS BANCROFT,i 

MAYOR OF CAMBRIDGE. 

I ESTEEM it a high privilege to meet you upon this, the first 
of the observances, with which is commemorated our city's fifti- 
eth anniversary. This ol)servance is not only the first, but it is 
the only one which is devoted entirely to a single interest of the 
city, apart from all others. In this way is shown the impor- 
tance which this community attaches to the subject of educa- 
tion. And why shoidd not education be held here in high 
esteem ? It was no mere accident by which the fathers estab- 
lished here a college, ere scarce they had founded a state. 
FiUl well was the character of those who dwelt here known, 
and with much confidence was the preservation of learning 
intrusted to their care. 

Many of you who now sit here may reasonably expect to take 
part in the observance of the one hundredth anniversary of the 
incorporation of our city. \Yhat opportunities you will have ! 
What responsibilities you will bear ! What achievements may 
be yours ! And with what feelings you will look back to this 
day! 

It is not my purpose to give utterance to such further obser- 
vations as the occasion suggests, for others have been asked to 
speak to you. [Introducing President Eliot.] This will not 
be the first time that a president of Harvard has talked to Cam- 
bridge pupils ; but I shall not be charged with exaggeration 
when I say that no president of Harvard has ever reached 
a hiffher eminence in the domain of education than he who will 
now address you. I announce President Eliot of Harvard Uni- 
versity. 

[Later, introducing Judge Mclntire.] I am now about to 
ask you to listen to one who was Cambridge-born ; educated 

' Introductory remarks at the feathering of the pupils of the English 
High and Latin schools, and the higher grades of the Parochial schools, at 
Sanders Theatre, June 2, 



WILLIAM AMOS BANCROFT. 57 

in the public schools ; holding a degree of Harvard Univer- 
sity ; a soldier of the Union ; one who has served in the coun- 
cils of the city, and of the commonwealth ; for years a safe 
adviser of the municipality ; and who possesses the character 
and attainments that warranted his appointment to high judi- 
cial office. Sooner or later all of us who are able to save any 
property are sure to take an interest in the decrees of his court. 
I ask you to listen to the Hon. Charles J. Mclntire, jirincipal 
judge of probate for Middlesex County. 

[Still later, introducing Secretary Hill.] It is fortunate 
that the accident of birth is not needed to become devoted to 
the welfare of our city. Ten years ago there came among us as 
the master of the English High School, then just established, 
one whose intelligence, whose zeal, and whose discretion ob- 
tained quick recognition in this, the very home of education. 
After he had served us with marked distinction, Boston asked 
him to take charge of its great school of mechanic arts ; but 
the commonwealth soon claimed his talents, and he has become 
the worthy successor of Horace Mann. I am sure that those 
who will now hear him for the first time will regret that they 
have not heard him before, and that those who have heard him 
before will want to hear him again. I announce the honorable 
secretary of the State Board of Education, Mr. Frank A. Hill. 



HOXORABLE WILLIAM AMOS BANCROFT,! 

MAYOR OF CAMBRIDGE. 

In large part the history of nations, both ancient and modern, 
has been intimately associated with the history of their cities. 
If cities have not contained all the intellect and all the con- 
science of mankind, yet they have often been the theatres of 
direction, and often, too, of decisive action. A city has always 
been taken to mean a municipality, having not only a large poi> 
nlation, but possessing great wealth invested in public institu- 
tions and in private concerns, and to be as well the abiding 
place of many who take the lead in human affairs. Indeed, 
the idea of a city is that of a cluster of human activities. 
Much, therefore, of human interest centres about the city. 

It is to the city that the traveler goes to study the traits of a 
people. Its government, its laws, its social customs, its busi- 
ness enterprises, its provisions for health, safety, education, its 
arrangements for locomotion, for communication, the use it 
makes of nature and of art for its convenience, its comfort and 
adornment — in short, the civilization of a people is and can be 
studied best in its cities. 

It is fitting, then, that at suitable periods and in a suitable 
manner a city should publish to the world some account of 
its resources, some statement of its characteristics, some outline 
of its prospects. This can be done by the spoken word, by 
the printed page, by the procession in the public streets, by the 
gathering of its inhabitants, and by various other means which 
an aroused civic spirit suggests. 

Founded 266 years ago, Cambridge has now entered upon the 
fiftieth year of its corporate existence. Grown since 1846 from 
a population of 13,000, and a valuation of about $10,000,000, 
it has now a population of 83,000, and a valuation of upwards 
of $100,000,000. Long known to the world as the seat of the 
foremost university in the country, it possesses also municipal 

^ Speech delivered at the public meeting in Sanders Theatre, June 2. 



WILLIAM AMOS BANCROFT. 59 

advantages which are distinct, even if less famous. It is be- 
lieved to be the largest city in the country which for nearly a 
generation has enjoyed a non-partisan government, as it is the 
largest city which for a decade has decreed and enforced for 
itself the absence of liquor saloons. It has a water supply, a 
sewer system, and a park system rarely equaled. It has numer- 
ous churches, excellent schools, ample and beautiful public 
buildings, efficient police and fire departments, well kept and 
well-lighted streets, good transit facilities, and a low tax rate. 
It has 125,000,000 invested in manufacturing, and 5,000,000 
feet of vacant land within a mile of the State House for more. 
It has beautiful residences, and plenty of attractive sites for 
more. It has historic and literary associations that are the 
pride of the nation, and it has, what other cities and towns in 
the Union have also, noble men and noble women. 

The record of " Fifty years a city " will soon be closed. In 
it there is much to praise and but little to regret. We take 
counsel of the past for the gain of the future, and look forward 
with high hopes. 

In the fifty years art has changed the face that nature gave 
our territory. Have religion and learning and experience 
changed the public character ? I do not know that they have, 
but I believe it is no less virtuous to-day than it was a half 
century ago. I need not recite the names of the living whom 
we delight to honor, whose bounty and whose services have 
aroused our civic spirit and are making this a city beautiful. 
Loyal, then, let us be, and let public virtue be our civic pride. 

We are met to listen to such observations upon the interests 
that we commemorate as those who have been invited to speak 
shall choose to offer. I am glad that the voices you will hear 
are the voices of Cambridge citizens. Their attainments, their 
fame, their devotion especially to this community, make un- 
necessary any words of introduction. 



REVEREND DAVID NELSON BEACH, D. D.i 

" Pray for tlie peace of Jerusalem : 
They shall i)rosper that love thee. 
Peace be within thy walls, 
And prosperity within thy palaces. 
For my brethren and comjianions' sakcs, 
I will now say, Peace be within thee. 
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God 
I will seek thy good." 

Ps.\LM cxxii. C-9. 

Standing on the eve of the celebration of the fiftieth anni- 
versary of the incorporation of Cambridge as a cit}^ and bear- 
ing in mind the desire of our noble chief magistrate, our 
thoughts, even in God's house, and on this holy da}', turn natu- 
rally toward the subject of our city. For this we have abun- 
dant warrant in Scripture, which, though it is concerned with 
the highest and eternal truths, bodies these forth to us in con- 
nection with the lives of men, of communities, of cities, and 
of nations. The text is a glowing example of such a temper. 
That temper extends throughout the Bible. Its vision of 
heaven in the Apocalypse is the vision of a city lying four- 
square, the length and the breadth and the height of it equal. 
Augustine's glowing " City of God," which has engaged the im- 
agination and tender emotion of the church in all the ages since, 
and has suggested the norm by which to build civic life on 
earth, as well as the s])iritual life within, is animated by the 
same idea, and owes the warm response which it has ever 
received to such an aptitude in men. 

Let me say, then, that no city on this continent, and few 
cities in the world, have greater occasion for such a mood than 
has this city of our profoundest love. It was one of the earliest 
to be settled in New England. The men who were first hei*e, 
Hooker, and his earnest company, who, most of them, migrated 
soon to the valley of the Connecticut, and Thomas Shepard and 

' Abstract of a sermon preached at the Prospect Street Congregational 
Church, May 31. 



DAVID NELSON BEACH. 61 

his friends, who, under strikingly providential circumstances, 
effected the permanent settlement, were persons of extraordi- 
nary character, capacity, and promise. To Shepard especially 
it was due that here was gathered the first Synod of the 
churches of the Colonies ; that here was put forth the first 
formal declaration of principles of the ecclesiastical polity then 
dominating this portion of the new world ; that here were 
settled certain exceediugly difficult problems, affecting the re- 
ligious life and harmony of Massachusetts Bay ; and to the char- 
acter, judgment, eloquence, and devotion of Shepard was due 
the fact that here was founded the first American college. 

The events from the middle of thg seventeenth century to 
the middle of the eighteenth, while not so notable as those 
earlier and later, were, as a whole, highly creditable to our 
comiuunity. But as the middle of tlie eighteenth century 
arrived, here began to be specially manifested that spirit which 
made Cambridge so conspicuous in the American Revolution. 
Cambridge then presently became, over and over again, the 
gathering jjlace of the men of Middlesex in the early struggles 
and protests against the encroachment of British tyranny. Not 
only the geographical position of the town, but the temper of 
its people, and the traditional position which it had come to 
occupy as a centre of right civil impulses, caused it to be the 
key of the situation in the first great moves of the struggle with 
England. 

On our soil landed the troops who marched on Lexington. 
Within our bounds, upon the retreat, occurred some of the 
severest fighting of that bloody day. From our common, at 
nine o'clock in the evening of June 16, 1776, after prayer by 
the president of the college, marched the men who, within the 
next twenty-four hours, made the little hillock in Charlestown 
one of the most famous spots on the globe, and the key and 
presage of the victorious ending of that unequal struggle upon 
whicli our people had begun. Hither came Washington. 
Under the tree still standing, he took command of the Ameri- 
can army. During his stay of nine months in this town, he 
grew from a provincial military commander to one of the fore- 
most and ablest soldiers of history. Hence it was that there 
issued his permission that Gage should retire — indeed with 
flying colors, an empty honor — from Boston, and in effect 
from New England. Hither was brought Burgoyne after the 



62 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

fateful (lay of Saratoga, and here, in a house yet standing, he 
spent his honorable imprisonment until his return over seas. 
The very force of the first campaign of the Revolution was so 
effective and decisive that this ceased to be a place of military 
importance after 1777 ; but never, so long as the memory of 
heroic deeds shall abide, can the events here enacted, the char- 
acters here playing their parts, and the storied places which 
are so numerous within our limited boundaries, cease to have 
a precious meaning for those able to be touched by the heroic 
and inspiring in human life. 

The years between the Revolution and the outbreak of our 
Civil War continued to be in keeping, though in quiet tones, 
with Cambridge's mighty past. It was not by accident that 
the first company received into the service of the Union in the 
war for the suppression of the Rebellion was our immortal 
Cambridge company. It was not by accident that from Elm- 
wood went out the " Biglow Papers," on their humorous, heroic, 
solemn errand, to stir thought and feeling and life for our cause 
on both sides the sea. It was not by accident that here was 
recited the " Commemoration Ode " when the war was done. 
This and other immortal pieces of literature, here originating, 
were but the natural outworkings of Cambridge's mighty past. 

But God's greatest gifts to men are not wonderful historical 
associations, or those having to do, as has been so splendidly 
true of Cambridge, with education, or even with religion as a 
formal thing in the world ; but his greatest gift is the gift to 
the world of seers, of poets, and of great constructive and in- 
s|)iring personalities. Such in ample largess has God given to 
Cambridge. Passing by many poets of lesser name, though 
of large endowment and fame, and several other classes of in- 
tellectually great men, Cambridge has had within the more 
recent decades its Holmes, its Longfellow, and its Lowell. 

O City dear to all our hearts, thou art haunted by the 
memories of the mighty dead ; by recollections of prodigious 
educational and religious impulses ; but especially art thou 
haunted by the deathless spirits of thy great poets and seers ! 

And the best of it all is that Cambridge's past is matched by 
her present. She has been marching out into the lai'ger life 
of our time. For now a generation she has excluded partisan- 
ship from municipal affairs. For now nearly a decade she has 
excluded the saloon from her populous streets. She has lifted 



DAVID NELSON BEACH. 63 

the ideals of civic life wondrously. Slie has obliterated, in the 
harmfid sense, the divisions of politics, classes, races, and re- 
ligions. She has unified in an extraordinary degree the spirit 
of her whole jjeople. Finally, within the last decade, has 
sprung up, under the local phrase familar to us all, a muni- 
cipal ideality hardly excelled by anything since the days of the 
famous cities of ancient Greece. And all this has been going- 
on while the temper in education, and the constructive force of 
our university, have been putting the name of Cambridge in 
the world's forefront in all intellectual ranges. 

O my friends, is it possible for us to realize, even in some 
imperfect degree, that stupendous past and stupendous present 
which are ours ? God open our eyes that we may see the won- 
drous vision, and our hearts that we may be duly thankful, and 
that we may adequately face the responsibility which all this 
involves I 

This last is the pith of all. What shall be the future of 
Cambridge ? When she celebrates the centennial of her incor- 
poration, what shall be the record of the city's second half- 
century? We can tell what we hope it will be. We can kindle 
our hearts with mighty purposes thereunto. We can dedicate 
oiu'selves to the same. This should be the practical purpose of 
the services in the churches this morning', and of the splendid 
pageants and festivities which await our people this week. 

Comprehensively speaking, Cambridge has but to go on in 
the path wherein her feet are already set. She has but to be 
true to her past. Let the earnest mood, the tender but broad 
religious temper, the strong emphasis upon things intellectual 
which has marked her, the heroic spirit, the vision, the seer- 
ship, and yet the practical and living and concrete application 
of the same, be hers in the future. 

To this end, let me urge that we be intelligent about the 
past of our city, and about its present, and, especially, that our 
young men and young women dedicate themselves to these high 
ends. Let us amend everything that needs amending in pres- 
ent conditions, and, if I may rejicat words spoken by me at a 
public meeting in March, let me urge these three things : " Be 
one. See far. Act." 

And now may the richest blessing of the God of our fathers, 
yea, and of our own God, bo upon us. Then assuredly, may 
we take up the words of the ancient seer : — 



64 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

" Pray for the peace of Jerusalem : 
They siuill prosper that love thee. 
Peace be witiiiu thy walls, 
And pnjsperity witiiiu thy palaces. 
For in}' brethren and companions' sakes, 
I will now say, Peace be within thee. 
For the sake of the house of the Lord our fiod 
I will seek thy good." 



REVEREND GEORGE W. BICKNELL, D. D.i 

" A citizen of no mean city." — Acts xxi. 39. 

We are this week to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the 
incorporation of Cambritlge into a city. Of course there is no 
city, no community, which has not its outs. There is no one 
in which there is not a great chance for improvement. But we 
believe our city in many ways is superior. 

If we would in every station of life endeavor to look for the 
higher things, instead of contemplating the unpleasant ones, we 
should find a great deal more of heaven than we do. If I were 
to speak of Cambridge to a stranger, I should not describe the 
approach by the way of West Boston Bridge, but go up the 
river and speak of the beautiful ajsproach by the new Harvard 
Bridge. Neither should I dwell upon the lack of transportation 
between Cambridge and Boston, but present the model patience, 
poor model though, which pulls straps in the over-crowded 
cars. Nor yet should I be too earnest regarding the lack of 
decent sidewalks, even in the centre of the city, compelling the 
children attending some schools to walk through mud and snow 
at times to get to their buildings, but rather speak of the beau- 
tiful shade trees which line the streets. 

Fifty years ago a grand town was born into a city. ■ Then 
there were 12,000 inhabitants, now over 80,000. Then one 
paid 15 cents to go in the " bus " from Harvard Square to 
Boston ; but now 5 cents. The mayor's salary was $600, now 
$3500 a year. The city clerk received $400 and other officials 
in proportion. The appropriation for the police department 
was $2700, now $110,700. The first city hall cost $2000, the 
present one $235,000. The number of births in the city in 
1846 was 47, in 1894, 2479 ; marriages in 1846, 96, in 1895, 
966 ; deaths, in 1846, 163, in 1895, 1642 ; fire department 
appropriation, in 1846, $2757, in 1895, $82,000. The taxes 

' Abstract of a sermon preached at the First Universalist Church, May 
31. 



66 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

then were $5 on a thousand, now 115.75. But mark the im- 
provements. Where were pastures then are now schools, 
churches, business blocks and residences. 

Cambridge's first graded schools were established in 1834, 
and the school appropriation in 184G was 18500 ; now $236,000. 
There were then 30 teachers, now 322. There were then 458 
students at Harvard, and there are now 3500. There were 
standai'ds then, and there are standards now. But how much 
higher they are to-day : the salary of the teachers then was 
1250, now !|!G20. When contrasted with the changes of the 
half century, with the requirements pertaining to the teachers, 
the salary is far too small. 

The shape of the map of Cambridge in 1G35 resembled a 
cradle ; in 1G44 it looked like a long boot, while in 1896 it is 
shaped like a butterfly. 

Some say we are behind, that we do not keep up. That de- 
pends upon what you mean by keeping up. True, outside busi- 
ness is not rushing, although in the one hundred and fifty 
manufactories in our city there is an immense amount of unseen 
business. Boston itself would be crippled if it were not for the 
brains of men who live outside of the city, and many of these 
are Cambridge men. 

Morally, Cambridge stands high. W^e are free from saloons, 
gambling hells, and brothels. In the main, one must go out- 
side our limits to find striking immorality. You seldom see an 
intoxicated person. There may be some kitchen bar-rooms, but 
they are hidden. Thefts are rare ; property comparatively safe. 

We have as clean a city government as one could ask for. 
Look into our city hall. There is not an official there who is 
not a gentleman. Partisan politics does not enter into our city 
affairs. A Kepublican can vote for a Democrat for mayor if 
the candidate is a decent man, and vice versa, and not lose 
caste with his party. Match it if you can. 

Cambridge has many manufactories which call for skilled 
labor. The wage-earner of our city is usually a desirable citi- 
zen. Our educational advantages are innumerable. The very 
best is at the command of the wage-earner as well as the scholar. 

As I have remarked, there are some outs. Cambridge is 
socially cold and reserved. There are but few evidences of 
heart in the hand for strangers, or even acquaintances. A con- 
servative spirit holds one at arm's length. Cambridge people 



GEORGE W. BICKNELL. 67 

are sijlendid people, but " so far and no farther " is the spirit. 
It is critical — a little fault outweighing a score of virtues. It 
has only a feeble spirit of enthusiasm. It is all right when 
started, but the difficulty is to start it. 

Its churches are conservative, — live within themselves. The 
ministers, generally speaking, are like their churches, and the 
theology which is preached and sometimes published is no credit 
to the scholarship of our city. They are good fellows — that 
is, some of them — when you meet them ; but the meeting is 
very seldom. The power which the churches can exert is seen 
in the work of the no-license campaigns. The work of the 
clergy along this line has been grand. 

The future is before us. We are to take a very active part 
in the great strides of the next quarter of a century. Our op- 
portunities are great. We have the means and the facilities to 
lead the world in educational matters. To what height will not 
science lead the Cambridge scholar ? What revelations may 
be made to the world regarding earth, life, and even something 
of the beyond, through the minds which may be active here! 

The churches will change. The Church of the Message, giv- 
ing to the world the words, principles, etc., of the Christ will 
be the mighty power of the future. A half century hence it 
will require a -microscope to find even the names of some of the 
denominations which are trying to do good, and which will fail 
as sects because of their conservative and narrow methods and 
ideas. Dogma must recede to let practical Christianity come 
to the front. There are cranks everywhere, but the economy 
of the law of advancement requires that they shall and they do 
grind to some good purpose. 

A city is in a degree the reflection of the spirit of its inhab- 
itants. We should talk up our home place. We can make 
many boasts which are not idle. We can make Cambridge 
even more than it is, by infusing into it our interest. We can 
make its name grander than ever before, by unfolding more 
manly characteristics, and God will bless as seems to Him good. 



REVEREND ALEXANDER BLACKBURN, D. D.i 

" When it goeth well with the righteous, the city rejoiceth : and when 
the wicked perish, there is shouting. By the blessing of the upright the 
city is exalted : but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked." — Prov- 
erbs xi. 10, 11. 

Our honored mayor did well when he suggested that the 
churches of the city hold appropriate services in commemora- 
tion of the semi-centennial of the city's organization. We 
hold to no organic union of church and government, but we do 
believe they are very closely related, — the one always to be 
friendly and responsive to the other. 

During these fifty years prayers have ascended from these 
altars for the prosperity of the city, and during the same years 
the city has ever been ready to extend such protection as was 
in its power. When the flames claimed the church building, 
the men in the employ of the city did all in their power to 
ward off the calamity, and so between church and city there 
has ever been the most coixlial relations. 

It is not the place or time to enter upon any historical review 
of our city's life — ibtSit would be only to reiterate what has 
been said many times, and in these days there is little danger 
that our city shall suffer for lack of eulogists ; indeed, were it 
not for the fact that fifty years have brought wisdom and sta- 
bility, there might be danger that fair Cambridge might have 
her head turned by too much praise. I only take occasion 
to-night to point out some of the relations of religion to munici- 
pal life. 

This church organization is about twenty-eight years older 
than the city, and no doubt has had some influence in shaping 
the character of our community. Pastors and people have 
been true to the sentiment of patriotism in city, state, and 
nation. When the war came, young men from this church and 
congregation were among the first to respond. I know not 

' Abstract of a sermon preached at the First Baptist Church, May 31. 



ALEXANDER BLACKBURN. 69 

how many went forth. Only yesterday I had occasion to make 
myself known to two different comrades of the G. A. E,., and 
each responded : " I used to go to that chvu-ch." 

I invite you to a brief consideration of some thoughts that 
seem appropriate to this week of rejoicing, and we may well let 
the wise King Solomon lead us. His central thought in the 
text quoted is : The rejoicing and exaltation of a city depends 
on the prosperity of the righteous. It is the righteous people 
in a city that make it great. We are coming more and more 
to see that righteousness is a broad word ; it involves very much 
beside honest dealing and truthful speaking. The righteous 
man is a full-grown man, the man with cultivated mind ; 
hence we establish our schools that our youth may get under- 
standing. The vast fields of truth open before them ; and as 
they grasp truth, they become more what God would have 
them. Away with the old notion that goodness and ignorance 
are inseparable ! 

Along with this must go the development of the higher 
nature. There can be no exalted character until the conscience 
assumes its place — enlightened by truth it becomes the judge 
of actions and the life runs in right channels. And again, the 
righteous man recognizes his relations with God. I would say, 
then, that a city is exalted when her citizens are men of under- 
standinsr in the truth — whose consciences are true and in con- 
trol, and who are in right relations with God. 

But this is not all. The truly righteous man recognizes his 
neighbor. He is only one among many, and each man has 
some claim upon him. A city is what its citizens make it, but 
this means some active interest in the affairs of his city. Christ 
said, " Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." The 
general public is our Ciesar, — the city, and state, and national 
government. 

1 received a bundle of tracts this week, " Why a Christian 
Should Not Vote." I did not read them all, but the argument 
was that because of some grievous wrongs in the government 
the Christian must not recognize the government so far as to 
cast a ballot. The whole theory is wrong. The ballot is a 
trust to be used for the good of the community, and the man 
who refuses to use it is guilty of violating a trust. Suppose 
the Christian men of Cambridge eleven years ago had said : 
" It is wrong for a city to license saloons ; Cambridge licenses 



70 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

saloons, therefore I will not recognize the city government by 
going to the polls." How long would it have taken to get the 
saloons out of our city? The man who is silent against the 
evil acts of his government becomes responsible ; if he speaks 
out he enters his protest and has cleared his skirts. If the 
good men of our city present a solid front, the wicked will 
perish and there will be shouting. 

Another princi})le of righteousness is sacrifice. The crown- 
ing act of the most righteous man who ever trod our earth was 
his complete self-sacrifice. The sign of the Christ is not a just 
weight or an honest dollar, though He taught that as emphati- 
cally as words could express. The sign of this most righteous 
of men was and is the cress. That cross has done more to 
civilize and bless the world than all other symbols. In the 
spirit of self-sacrifice the men of God went forth in the olden 
time — Paul and Augustine and Patrick, and a host of others 
— to civilize and Christianize the world. These men have had 
their followers in modern times, and because they were self- 
sacrificing we enjoy our present blessings. 

The first half hundred years of our city have passed ; they 
have been full of noble achievements. What of the next fifty 
years ? Greater glory awaits us if there be true righteousness, 
if the minds of our people be enlarged, if their consciences are 
true, if they are right with God, if they are true to the respon- 
sibilities of their citizenship, if they are Christ-like in sacrifice. 



GEORGE RUFUS COOK.i 

Said Beaconsfield : " A great city whose image dwells on the 
memory of man is the type of some great idea. Rome repre- 
sents conquest ; faith hovers over Jerusalem, and Athens embod- 
ies the preeminent quality of the antique world-art." Witli 
equal truth it might be added that great cities which now exist 
likewise stand for great ideas. New York represents commer- 
cial conquest ; Berlin is the world's object lesson of a scientific 
administration of municipal concerns, while Paris stands pre- 
eminent in the quality of modern municipal art. 

Now, when we consider that greatness in cities has reference 
more to character than to area ; to quickened souls rather 
than to the census : when we reflect on the beginnings of our 
Cambridge community — the lofty ideal which held it together 
during the early years of hardship : when we reflect how that 
comnuniity spirit widened into a devotion to the common- 
wealth, and — still widening into the spirit of 1776 — this com- 
munity was among the first to express the dream of a national 
life, and yet later — in the spirit of 1861 — to preserve a na- 
tion's life : when we trace the Puritan conception of right com- 
munity living, — manifest in early times by rigorous ordinances 
sternly enforced, now touched by the gentle influences of mod- 
ern charity, but as persistent against error and evil as of yore 
(as witnessed in our decade of refusal to harbor the public 
dram-shop) : when we reflect on the force among us which — 
in an age of political consideration and partisan service almost 
obliterating municipal concerns all around us — has here uni- 
formly insisted on a separate consideration and vote on local 
affairs : when we reflect on the institutions of learning which 
this community fosters ; on the men of world-fame who, living 
here, have moved in our local affairs ; on the far-seeing scheme 
of city adornment which is to transform this ancient place into 
one beautiful park — a scheme in which a year is but as a day 

^ Extract from an address delivered at the Grace Methodist Episcopal 
Church, May 31. 



72 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

and a century but as a season : when we reflect on these Cam- 
bridge characteristics and on their ever-widening influence in 
this nation and among the nations, may we not chiim that our 
city, too, is great and that it stands as the type of a civic spirit 
as unique as it is grand ? 

In the turn of political affairs, or as a result of the increase 
in this metropolitan population, Cambridge may in future 
years fade from the map of Massachusetts. Cambridge may 
sometime be a name known only to history. Yet now it is 
ours to resolve that when the image of our city dwells only 
on the memory of man, it shall still be the type of a great idea. 
As Rome represents conquest, as faith hovers over Jerusalem, 
as Athens embodies the preeminent quality of the antique 
world-art, so may Cambridge stand for a civic patriotism 
which dared to be true to high ideals and would surrender to 
no interest which did not commend itself to an enlightened 
municipal conscience. 



CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT, LL. D.,i 

PRESIDENT OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 

The university bids you all welcome, and is heartily glad to 
see teachers and pupils of Cambridge schools assembled in this 
university theatre. It is a good sign of the times that col- 
leges and universities no longer hold apart from the great 
educational interests of the masses of the people. There was a 
time when colleges seemed to have inherited some of the mo- 
nastic exclusiveness which had characterized their predecessors, 
the monasteries ; but now colleges and universities, especially 
in our own country, have become institutions of popular resort, 
and take a keen interest in everything relating to the safe con- 
duct of free institutions, whether in municipal, state, or na- 
tional affairs. I hope that in the future they are to take even 
a larger part in the formation of a sound public opinion on 
questions of government and social organization. 

This afternoon I want to say a few simple words to the pu- 
pils of the schools here represented. We have come together 
to rejoice that Cambridge has been a city for fifty years. 
Why should the children of the schools celebrate such an anni- 
versary? What interest should the schoolgirl or schoolboy 
take in the government of Cambridge, in the external features 
of the city, and in its moral or spiritual character? Looking 
back at my own childhood and reading the biographies of other 
people, I have become satisfied that the dwelling-place becomes 
dear to the child fi'om some external beauty or convenience 
it possesses, from the habitual sight of beautiful objects, or 
from some familiar sounds which become associated with pleas- 
ant conditions of life. The beauty or convenience may be 
something small or trivial. It may be the splendid wistaria 
vine on the next house, every year announcing June, or the 

' Address delivered to the pupils of the English High and Latin schools, 
and the higher grades of the Parochial schools, at Sanders Theatre, 
June 2. 



74 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

trumpet vine which glorifies the mid-summer for a whole neigh- 
borhood, or the lilac bushes in your own front yard, or an 
apple tree or a pear tree in a neighbor's back yard, adorning 
your little world with its blossoms every spring. Or it may be 
some' larger thing, like the summer vista down the elm-shaded 
street, or the fair proportions of the city hall or the public 
library. I dare say that you girls and boys will remember 
with pleasure all your lives your habitual walk to and from 
school. I do. There is a path on Boston Common, shaded 
with linden trees, and running from Joy Street to West Street, 
which I always recall with delight. A sound familiar to me in 
the summer evenings of my boyhood is still pleasant in my 
ears. I was born and brought up in a house which looked on 
Boston Common before there were any shops about the com- 
mon ; and after I had gone to bed in the summer there came 
through the open window of my chamber the rustle of hundreds 
of feet on the gravel walk of the mall, as the men and women 
walked there together in the cool of the day. 

Cambridge illustrates perfectly all the external charms of 
which I speak. Have you ever noticed the vista down Mas- 
sachusetts Avenue as you go from Central Square towards 
Boston, with the tower of the new Old South at the end of the 
opening ? Let us hope that that vista will never be closed. 
Did you ever notice the beauty of the curves in Brattle Street, 
— that old highway which the first dwellers in Cambridge laid 
out with such good judgment as the easiest path toward 
Watei-town ? If you seek a more recent example of the beauty 
of well-curved streets, you may find one in Scott and Irving 
streets on the north side of Kirkland Street. Did you ever 
notice how the streets in Cambridge recall its history and its 
former inhabitants ? There are many streets named for Cam- 
bridge worthies of the period before the Revolutionary War, — 
such as Lee, Dana, Trowbridge, Remington, Brattle, and 
Craigie. There are many others named for college officials, 
such as Dunster, Chauncy, Kirkland, Ware, Quincy, Sparks, 
Everett, Walker, and Peabody. Ajipleton Street recalls the 
name of Nathaniel Api)l('ton, who in the last century was min- 
ister of the First Parish in Cambridge for more than fifty 
years. Such names bring back to us the best men of our town 
in former generations : and sucli associations are precious, and 
should be familiar to the children of the city. I trust that you 



CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT. 75 

all study faithfully Paige's " History of Cambridge." Nobody 
deserves to grow up iu Cambridge who does not make himself 
familiar with that book. It is au epitome not only of the his- 
tory of Cambridge, but of a good many other Puritan towns. 
It fills the place with memories of bygone events, precious to 
the people of former times, and precious still to us, their de- 
scendants or successors. 

There is another reason why you should value Cambridge as 
your birthplace, or the place of your education. Many men 
have lived here who have added something to the stock of 
human knowledge, or enriched American literature, or contri- 
buted to the development of the national mind and character. 
Waterhouse, Worcester, Holmes, Longfellow, Lowell, Palfrey, 
Agassiz, and Gray are Cambridge names forever. It is a pre- 
cious thing: to live where such men have walked and worked. 

And now a word about the future : You girls and boys who 
have been educated here at the expense of the city owe it some- 
thing in the future. You have a debt to pay to the city of 
Cambridge. You should try, so far as in you lies, to make it 
more beautiful, more interesting, more honorable, more worthy 
of love and remembrance. Give all your influence to the mak- 
ing of parks, open places, and beautiful vistas, to the decora- 
tion of the city with trees, shrubs, and grass, to the erection of 
handsomer churches and schoolhouses, and to the building of 
better highways. As you grow up, do something to add to the 
reputation of Cambridge for good government and good social 
conditions. So you can repay the debt you owe, not only to 
the city fathers of to-day, but to the eight generations of men 
and women who have here reared families, made homes, and 
firmly established sound municipal institutions. 



CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT, LL. D.,i 

PRESIDENT OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 

His honor, the mayor of Boston, has intimated that Boston 
has been the mother of many cities, and of Cambridge among 
them. We admit the relationship, and find it quite natural 
that our connections with Boston should often have been 
somewhat troublous. Mother and daughter did not inter- 
change many visits, when it was eiglit miles fi'om Cambridge 
to Boston by the ferry at the foot of Dunster Street, across the 
marshes on the other side of Charles River, through Longwood 
past the head of Muddy River, and so by the Neck into Bos- 
ton. It is only twenty-seven years ago that the last toll-bridge 
between Boston and Cambridge became free. Every new 
bridge has proved a new bond between mother and daughter ; 
and now we want the best bond of all, a solid dam which will 
make the Charles River basin a fresh-water lake. We cheer- 
fully accept the intimate relationship between Boston and Cam- 
bridge. We cannot have a good sewerage system without the 
aid of Boston ; and it is certain that we can never thoroughly 
enjoy our park along the north bank of the Charles, unless the 
Boston Park Commission and the Metropolitan Park Commis- 
sion make an equally beautiful park on the south bank of the 
river. For the best public enjoyment, both banks of the river 
should be gardens. 

Mayor Quincy has spoken of the strong interest Harvard 
men have lately manifested in municipal government. His 
observation is entirely correct. I was pleased to see that at 
the municipal elections last fall four Harvard graduates were 
elected mayors of Massachusetts cities, — Bancroft in Cam- 
bridge, Quincy in Boston, Lyman in Waltham, and Adams in 
Quincy, — and you notice that all four of these officials bear 
family names that have long been held in honor in Massachu- 
setts. It is a fact that university graduates are coming for- 
' Speech delivered at the banquet iu Union Hall, Juue 3. 



CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT. 11 

ward more and more into posts of eminent public service. I 
think this is a tendency wholesome alike for these public ser- 
vants themselves and for the communities which they serve. 
More and more the people desire great serviceableness in their 
officers. It is a reasonable hope and belief that university 
studies promote this serviceableness. Education, however, 
whether elementary or advanced, ought to promote something 
besides serviceableness ; it ought to promote enjoyment. So- 
ciety thinks more and more of enjoyment as a legitimate object 
of life — individual enjoyment and social or public enjoyment. 
To enable the child and the man to enjoy life more fully and 
rightly is just what school and college training ought always 
to do. 

Harvard University has been the guest of Cambridge for 
two hundred and sixty years, — ever since the little town gave 
the infant college its first site which now makes part of the 
college yard. In all these years the college has had protec- 
tion and endless favors from the town and city, and the uni- 
versity hopes and expects that these affectionate relations 
between the university and Cambridge will continue forever. 
The little town and the little college were humble and poor 
together for two centuries and a half. We hope they will 
grow ever stronger and more prosperous together for centuries 
to come. 

Cambridge offers hospitality every year to thousands of 
youth who come to her from all parts of the country. I desire 
to take this opportunity to thank the city for this wide hospital- 
ity. Some of these youth who come from afar are so attracted 
by Cambridge and Massachusetts that they spend their lives 
here ; others carry away with them a lasting affection for the 
city and its environs, and all their lives make pilgrimages to 
this shrine of their early love. 

I wish also to express the pleasure I experienced this morn- 
ing in riding with the governor of the commonwealth and his 
honor the mayor through the streets of the city. It was a 
delightful thing to witness the evidences of respect and affec- 
tion given to these magistrates by the assembled populace. I 
never before received so strong an impression of the general 
courtesy and fine bearing of the men, women, and children of 
the city assembled in great numbers for a public festivity. 



REVEREND FRANK OLIVER HALL.i 

" A city which hath fouudations, whose builder and maker is God." — 
Hebrews xi. 10. 

If God were to build a city, what kind of a city would He 
build ? AVhat would be the foundations of this city of God ? 

Of one thing we may feel sure. God speaks to us through 
experience, and the experience of the world has proclaimed 
the fact that no stones are heavy enough, that wood is not 
durable enough, that gold or iron is not stable enough, to 
stand as the foundation of the eternal city. Again and again 
men have undertaken to build a city on material wealth or on 
material strength ; but the cities of the world have met the 
judgment and been found wanting. The walls of Babylon 
were three hundred feet high, and so wide tliat one might drive 
four chariots abreast of four horses each around the city. 
These walls were manned by thousands of men. AVithin was 
treasured unlimited wealth. But all this strength and all this 
wealth did not save the city. 

" Thoy say tlic lion and the lizard keep 
The courts where Jamshyd reveled and drank deep ! " 

And so the history of the world is one long narrative of the 
futility of force or wealth as the foundation of a state or a city. 
The city of God will stand upon a different foundation. I 
purpose to specify the essential foundation stones of the citj' of 
God and to raise the question, Is Cambridge build ed upon 
such a sure foundation, — will it endure ? 

First let me say that these foundations will be laid not out- 
side but within the soul of man, — in his conscience and affec- 
tion. This w^as the thought that was in the mind of the apostle 
when he exhorted his fellow believers to be living stones of 
which should be made the temple of the living God. 

It is true of Cambridge as Emerson said of Boston : " It is 
not an accident, not a windmill, or a railroad station, or a 
' Sermon preached at the Third Universalist Church, May 31. 



FRANK OLIVER HALL. 79 

cross-roads tavern, or an army barracks grown up by time and 
luck to a jjlace of wealth ; but a seat of humanity, of men of 
princijile, obeying a sentiment and marching loyally whither 
that should lead them ; so that its annals are great historical 
lines, inextricably national, parts of the history of political 
liberty." 

1. Let us say that the first foundation stone upon which the 
city of the living God will rest must be libert3\ I feel sure 
that we have undertaken to build our city upon this founda- 
tion. It was in the cause of liberty that our fathers came over 
the sea to brave the terrors of the wilderness, — a desire to find 
liberty to worship God according to the dictates of conscience, 
— and Cambridge has always been first in the struggle for a 
wider liberty. 

But liberty is a grace into which men have to grow. It is 
natural to demand liberty for self. It is perhaps as natural to 
undertake to restrict the liberties of others. At any rate we 
know that hardly had the founders of Newtowne settled in this 
district before they thought it necessary to curtail in others 
what they were so strenuous in demanding for themselves. If 
they had found it hard to worship according to another ritual 
and creed, others found it just as hard to conform to theirs ; 
and against such, these men, brave and true to their convictions 
but not yet having entered upon the full appreciation of liberty, 
were very bitter and severe. It seems incredible to us that a 
first president of Harvard College should have been deposed 
from his office for persistency in the " damnable heresy " that 
the Bible did not teach the efficacy of infant baptism, and that 
his kinsman should have been tried and punished by the grand 
jury for neglecting to have his children baptized ; but such is 
the fact. And such were the ideas of liberty held by the men 
who laid the foundation of our city. 

It may help us to value our present privileges, to remember, 
too, that one citizen of this town endured for twenty years 
almost constant persecution because he was a Quaker. He was 
fined repeatedly, whipped in the public square, thrown into 
prison, and there retained for a year in spite of pleadings 
for liberty, and all for desiring on his own account the very 
privilege for which his persecutors had fled their homes, — to 
worship according to his own convictions. I note such in- 
stances only to show that liberty is a slow-growing virtue and 



80 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

that it has taken us long to arrive at the present degree of 
freedom. 

How strange in our ears sound the words of one of the first 
pastors of the church in Cambridge, a scholarly, a noble, and 
a kind-hearted man, but the creature of his age, as are we all. 
Pie was speaking, mind you, of Quakers and Baptists, fierce and 
awful creatures, as our experience has taught us, when he said : 
" Those beasts that break down the hedge of our civil govern- 
ment do not design to do it merely because they are angry 
with the hedge, but because they would break in and devour 
all that is precious and dear to us. The loud outcry of some 
is for liberty of conscience, that they may hold and practice 
what they will in religion. Such liberty of conscience is even 
a liberty of perdition." With what horror would this good 
man have been filled if he could have foreseen that the very 
church of which he was pastor would one day be a Unitarian 
organization, standing for absolute liberty, and that the college 
of which he was president would shortly become the most 
notable institution in all the land advocating perfect freedom 
of investigation, of thought, and of expression. All of this 
goes to show that progress has been made here in Cambridge 
until we have arrived at a point where even the most orthodox 
of our day would have been considered by Pastor Oakes as the 
most inconceivable heretics and infidels, fit subjects for the 
dungeon and the whipping-post. I do not think it possible for 
a community to attain to any wider religious liberty than that 
which the inhabitants of this community enjoy. There are 
here churches of all phases of thought. There is even in our 
midst an organization which would have been considered pure 
paganism a century ago. It is possible for a man to advocate 
atheism from the platform of our largest theatre in Boston. 
There are in our educational institutions men who are avowed 
materialists. And yet we are not afraid. We have come to 
feel sure that the human mind was made to ascertain the truth, 
and we are perfectly willing to have all sides presented in the 
faith that human reason can weigh all evidence and at last 
come to a just conclusion. 

But let us remember that liberty is not a thing valuable in 
itself. It is, indeed, only a means for the attainment of an 
end. Liberty is like money. There is a certain satisfaction in 
feeling that you are free, as there is a satisfaction in feeling 



FRANK OLIVER HALL. 81 

against your breast the bulge of a well-filled pocketbook. But 
in itself the paper in your pocketbook is valueless, — so many 
soiled and worthless sheets. In itself the liberty that we pos- 
sess is valueless except as we use it to the highest ends, — the 
attainment of truth, of happiness, of life. Woe unto the man 
who stoj)s with being free and knows not what to do with his 
freedom. Perhaps we were wrong in naming freedom as an 
element in the foundation of the city. The attainment of lib- 
erty is merely clearing the ground, making ready for the laying 
of the real foundation stones. 

2. Many have thought — some still think — that with the at- 
tainment of religious liberty religion itself would lose its hold 
upon the lives of men, and if we were to judge by the percent- 
age of church attendance such has been the fact. The time 
once was when the entire population of Cambridge took part in 
public worship. That time has gone, and there are thousands 
of peojile in our midst who seldom — some never — see the 
inside of a church. But it has always been a question in my 
mind as to how much compulsory piety is worth when a man 
might not absent himself from Christian ordinances without 
being shortly called upon to tell his reasons to the magistrate. 
If church attendance were compelled to-day under the penalty 
of a heavy fine and imprisonment, our churches might be filled 
as of yore, but that would not make the people more religious. 
We often, in trying to estimate the past, mistake superstition 
for religion. If people worshiped much they were nevertheless 
very cruel and very unreasonable. Here is an instance of the 
religiousness of this community some two centuries ago : — 

There lived in Watertown a man by the name of Goodman 
Genings. He had a sick child and hired a woman for nurse. 
The child died, and the nurse testified that a Mrs. Kendall of 
this community had bewitched the child. The only apparent 
reason for thinking so was that Mrs. Kendall had come to the 
house in which the child was sick, and petted and made much 
of it. That night the little one died, and the nurse testified 
that Mrs. Kendall had bewitched the little one to death. The 
pious magistrates, seemingly without so much as inquiry into 
the character of the nurse or calling the parents of the dead 
child to corroborate her testimony, put Mrs. Kendall to death 
as a witch in the public square of our town. But afterward 
some true soul thought to inquire of the parents what they 



82 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

thought about the affair, when, behold, they affirmed that in 
their opinion the death of the child was not caused by anything 
Goody Kendall did, for they esteemed her a good woman and 
a good friend, but that the nurse had neglected her charge and 
that the little one died in consequence. It afterward transpired 
that tlie nurse was but a disreputable creature, and she was 
cast into jail, where she died, — probably from privation. Alas 
for that religion which excuses cruelty ! 

So I am not afraid of a comparison of the general life of 
Cambridge of to-day with the life of Cambridge of the past. 
It would be impossible for a case like the foregoing to happen 
in these times. I verily believe that there is more of kindness, 
more of forgiveness, more of all the qualities by which Jesus 
tested religion, in Cambridge than ever before. Women that 
were at one time persecuted are now helped and encouraged. 
Men that would have been dx-iven into the wilderness are now 
punished, not for revenge but for reformation. It makes us 
sure that there is more real sympathy in the world when we 
read an account like this : As late as 1755 there was still 
slavery in Massachusetts, and two negroes, belonging to Cap- 
tain Codman of Charlestown, — we know not what tyranny 
aggravated tliem, — murdered their master. They were drawn 
on sleds to " Gallows Lot," and Mark, a young man of thirty, 
was hanged, and Phillis, an old woman, was burned at the 
stake. It is ])ossible still to burn negroes in some parts of our 
country, but in Cambridge such a thing would now be so repug- 
nant to Christian sentiment as to cause a revolution. 

Would that we were more faitliful to our church obligations 
of worship and consecration, but I am sure that this is a reli- 
gious city inasmuch as the hungry are fed, the naked clothed, 
the sick visited, and the poor comforted. 

We have been in recent years changing our thought of what 
constitutes religion, and we have come to feel that religion is 
not ritual, not the burning of incense or the wearing of robes, 
not even the making of prayers and the singing of hymns, 
— surely not signing a creed, — but that the essence of religion, 
that which is of most worth, consists in brotherhood, in the 
service of sym})athy, and in the offices of affection. Cam- 
bridge has come to be a symbol of all that throughout the coun- 
try. The i)hrase which has come to be a kind of watchword 
axiiong us, " The Cambridge Idea," stands for the best part of 



FRANK OLIVER HALL. 83 

religion. It means brotherhood. It means active help. It 
means honesty in private life and the same degree of honesty 
in public affairs. It means humanity before party. It means 
enmity to intemperance and uncleanliness, and especially to the 
institution which is the embodiment of both, — the saloon. It 
was a religions campaign, a campaign of the churches, that 
overthrew the saloon, and it is religion that keeps this institu- 
tion down. That the moral life of our city is higher than 
it used to be, as far as temperance is concerned, must be 
apparent to all people whose memory runs back fifty years. 
We have the testimony of so keen a man as Colonel Higginson 
that the moral standard is higher than it was in the days when 
he was a student. 

"Public opinion," he declares, "would not now tolerate the 
spectacle of members of the ' College Company ' staggering 
out of the ranks, falling by the wayside, or of members of the 
graduating class clustered about Liberty Tree the afternoon of 
Class Day welcoming all other students to their buckets of 
punch." To see a man intoxicated on our streets is now a 
spectacle to arouse surprise and indignation. Fifty years ago 
it was not extraordinary and did not meet with any loud popu- 
lar disapproval. And if we go back to earlier days, we find a 
time when President Dunster of Harvard gave his official ap- 
proval to Sister Bradish because she sold such comfortable 
mugs of beer. Then afterward a college brewery was erected 
near Stoughton and Mollis halls to supply the needs of students 
and professors. 

It is affirmed in some quarters that beer is sometimes drunk 
in the college even now, but a brewery under the direction of 
the college faculty, or a dram-shop stamped with the approval 
of the president, even though kept by a deacon and his good 
wife, would hardly meet with the sanction of the citizens of 
Cambridge. 

Truly we are making some progress toward laying the foun- 
dation of our city in that substantial part of religion called 
temperance. 

3. But if there is one thing for which Cambridge stands and 
always has stood, that one thing is education. It seems to me 
that the most characteristic and noble record of the doings of 
the settlers of Massachusetts is with reference to the estab- 
lishment of Harvard College. Let us remember that the date 



84 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

of the settlement of Boston was 1G30 ; that the land was a 
wilderness inliabited by savages ; that the men who had come 
to this wilderness were poor and had a prodigious task before 
them in the mere subduing of tlie land and the jdanting of 
homes. We ought to tliink with pride that these si)lendid 
men, having hardly gained a foothold on the land, began to 
think of the welfare of the state and the future well-being of 
their posterity. In 1G30 Boston was settled. In 1G31 New- 
towne was begun. Five years later the General Court agreed 
to give <£400, which exactly doubled the public tax for the 
year, toward a school or college. The next year tlie college 
was ordered to be built at Newtowne, the name having been 
changed to Cambridge. And a year later, as the quaint 
record puts it, '"' It pleased God to stir up the heart of one 
Mr. Harvard (a godly gentleman and a lover of learning, then 
living among us), to give one half of his estate (about -f 4000} 
and his library toward the erecting of a college." It is with 
pride, too, that we remember that this has been a democratic 
institution from the start. It was for rich and poor, learned 
and iguoi-ant ; " for the education of the English and Indian 
youth of this country in knowledge and godliness." And the 
first brick building on the ground was given to the Indians, 
and in it was printed the apostle Eliot's translation of the 
Bible into Indian dialect. It speaks well, too, for the heart 
and the head of New England that while Harvard has I'cceived 
from the state in sums of money some $21G,000 in all, and 
much land from the town of Cambridge, by far the largest por- 
tion of her wealth, $11,000,000, has come from gifts of private 
individuals. And the college has always been what it started 
to be, a democratic institution, where intellectual and moral 
merit have been of first importance. It is its boast, and a 
true one, I think, that no young man who has sincerely and 
earnestly desired to take the course at Harvard has been 
allowed to leave because he was poor. A^ ith all the cheap 
criticism of Harvard as a " rich man's college," patronized 
principally by rich and idle youth, it is true to-day, and always 
has been true, that a boy without a dollar may win his way 
and graduate with honor from any of its courses. The men 
who laid the foundation of the college, I think, would be aston- 
ished at many things could they return and witness the out- 
come of their work. For the results have been far greater 



FRANK OLIVER HALL. 85 

than the wisest could have foreseen, and like the roads running 
into the interior, the paths leading from the college have 
gone beyond the wildest imaginings. On a memorandum in 
possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, one may 
read that in the early days the persons appointed to lay 
out roads into the interior did it as far as the brook by Mrs. 
Biglow's in Weston, and that this was as far as would ever be 
necessary, it being seven miles from the college in Cambridge. 

They would marvel at the increase in wealth, at the increase 
in the number of students, and, above all, in the absolute re- 
versal of the spirit of the institution. The supreme motive for 
starting the college was " to advance learning and perpetuate 
it to posterity ; dreading to have an illiterate ministry to the 
churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust." 
The college then was principally to equip ministers. To-day 
the divinity school is one of the smallest of the departments, 
while science, law, medicine, all overshadow the clerical depart- 
ment. There is something to be regretted in this, but also 
something to rejoice in, inasmuch as we have learned that the 
doctor, the lawyer, the scientist, may also be ministers of the 
most high God. 

But the most radical chang'e of all is seen in the alteration of 
method. At first the object of the student was merely to be- 
come familiar with what men had thought in the past, to know 
the Greek and Latin classics and what the fathers of the 
church had taught. That was learning, and all that any man 
ought to desire. Individual investigation looking toward dis- 
coveiy of new truth was frowned upon. To-day the student 
is led to feel that the main object of studying the past is that 
by learning what men have thought he may press on to the 
discovery of new truth. We are beginning to know that truth 
is an ocean in which men have so far but dabbled. With free 
minds, tlioroughly equipped for investigation, what may we not 
expect from the future? You know how from this first im- 
pulse have sprung all the various institutions of learning in our 
midst. How from Elijah Corlet's grammar school, which he 
taught faithfully for a salaiy of 137.50 per annum, with a 
pittance from each scholar, to the thirty schools, 200 teachers, 
10,000 pupils, and expenditure of -f 250,000 a year, is an increase 
which may well make us believe that it is possible for every 
girl and boy in this community to win for themselves an educa- 



86 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

tion which would fit them to be citizens of the most splendid of 
cities. 

4. I may not leave this subject without calling attention to 
another fundamental principle, that is, patriotism. It is espe- 
cially ap})ropriate that this word should be spoken just after 
Memorial Day, and just before we begin our celebration of the 
birth of our city. 

It is one of the reasons for especial pride in our city that her 
sons have always been ready to sacrifice their all, property, 
limb, life, upon the altar of their country's need. If we would 
find the beginning of the manifestations of patriotism on the 
part of the citizens of Cambridge, we must go back to a date 
far anteceding the granting of the city charter. Who can for- 
get, standing as we do upon this sacred spot, surrounded by 
historic landmarks, — the very thought of which makes every 
American heart beat hard with honest pride, — that Cam- 
bridge was represented in every patriotic struggle in which our 
country engaged, and has ever been among the first to respond 
to the country's call. It is right that on the 19th of April we 
should make our pilgrimage to Concord and Lexington, and 
stand reverently beside " the rude bridge that spans the flood," 
and pay our tribute to the embattled farmers who perished there. 
But let us not forget that the honor of that memorable battle, 
that historic victory, belongs not to Concord nor to Lexington 
alone, but to Cambridge as well ; that the sons of Cambridge 
were there with their flint-locks and powder-horns ; and that, as 
the British retreated, their path was made a gauntlet of fire by 
your forefathers. Yea, let us claim for Cambridge the honor 
due to her, and call attention to the fact that the hardest fight- 
ing of the day was ujion her soil, and that as many men were 
sacrificed here in that first gi-eat struggle for liberty as in both 
Concord and Lexington ])ut together. 

And though, as it ha]>))en('d, no memorable battle has taken 
its name from any of our landmarks, the men of this community 
have always had their share in American struggles. When on 
tlie 17th of June, 1775, occurred, in the neighboring district of 
Charlestown, the battle of Bunker Hill, with which we always 
associate the name of the martyred Warren, next in rank to 
him among those who fell upon that day was Colonel Thomas 
(Gardner, a citizen and sidectman of Cambridge, and a member 
of the first Provincial Congress. None were braver than lie. 



FRANK OLIVER HALL. 87 

" He led his regiment to Bunker Hill," says Swett, the his- 
torian, " and was just descending into the engagement, when a 
musket-ball entered his groin, causing a wound which proved 
mortal. He gave his last solemn injunction to his men to con- 
quer or die ; and a detachment vyas just carrying him off the 
field wlien he was met by his son, second lieutenant, though a 
mere youth of nineteen, and the interview which ensued be- 
tween them was melancholy and heart-rending, but at the same 
time heroic. The affectionate son, in agony at the desperate 
situation of his father, was anxiously desirous of assisting him 
off the field, but was prohibited from doing this by his father, 
who, notwithstanding he was conscious that his woiind was 
mortal, yet encoui^aged his son to disregard it, reminding him 
that he was engaged in a glorious cause, and, whatever were 
the consequences, must march on and do his duty." It is with 
a feeling of admiration, mingled with wonder, that we learn that 
out of a population of less than 2000 at the time of the Revo- 
lution, Cambridge furnished more than 450 soldiers for the 
Revolutionary Army, which must have been nearly every able- 
bodied man of military age in her entire population. 

And when we come to the War of the Rebellion, we learn 
that the sons were no less patriotic than the fathers, for in this 
struggle for the preservation of the Union, Cambridge furnished 
to the army 4135 men, and to the navy 453 men, which was 
about one sixth of tlie entire population, and again must have 
taken nearly every able-bodied man of military age in the entire 
community. I doubt if there is another community in the en- 
tire country that can present a record superior to this. Nor 
should we forget, in this connection, that to Cambridge right- 
fully belongs the honor of organizing the first company of 
United States Volunteers. Some of you men will remember 
— for I doubt not that there are those before me to whom 
belongs the great honor of having joined that company — that 
soon after the presidential election of 1860, it became apparent 
to far-seeing men that the ancient feud concerning slavery must 
result, inevitably, in open hostilities, and that with patriotic 
foresight James P. Richardson, having inherited the spirit of 
his irreat-o-randfather, who fell at the battle of Lexington, or- 
ganized a company of militia. And when in 1861 there flashed 
over the wires the news that Old Glory had been fired upon in 
Charleston Harbor, and later came the caU of President Lincoln 



88 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

for 75,000 volunteers to defend the honor of the American 
Republic, and Governor Andrew wired his order to the sons 
of ^Massachusetts to respond, the very next morning Captain 
Richardson and ninety-five members of his company marched 
to the state house and signified that they were ready to obey 
orders. Quick work ; but it only shows the stuff that the men 
of Cambridge, descendants of Revolutionary Minute-Men, were 
made of. There were ninety-seven men in the company that 
enlisted for three months ; but at the end of that time ninety- 
three of them reenlisted for the war. In the words of one of 
these, who voiced the sentiments of all, he was " determined to 
go back to the seat of war and to fight till the war was over, 
and if need be he would leave his bones to bleach on Southern 
soil." How full of meaning his words were you may know as 
you read his name, Edwin T. Richardson, among those in- 
scribed upon the monument on Cambridge Common. Of this 
first company twenty-one, more than one in five, gave life for 
the country's salvation. 

The time may come — I am sure that all soldiers, who know 
from experience the horrors and the awful brutalities of war, 
hope and pray that it will soon come — when peace shall reign 
supreme on earth ; when disputes between nations and commu- 
nities shall be settled not by the arbitrament of war, but by the 
arbitration of justice in the parliament of man, the federation 
of the world. But whether that day comes soon or late the time 
will never arrive when men shall cease to reverence self-sacri- 
fice, when the love of country shall cease to be honorable, 
when the heroes of Marathon, of Balaclava, of Concord, of 
Bunker Hill, of Gettysburg, and the Wilderness, shall cease to 
be mentioned with honor and gratitude. 

So I feel sure that the foundations of our city are laid as 
they should be. We have a free city, — one where religion has 
its strong place, where education is honored, and patriotism 
flourishes. What further is necessary ? Only this : that we 
as citizens shall realize that the foundation is not the city ; 
that there is much for us all yet to perform ; that if Cambridge 
is to go on to the large achievements for which its founders 
destined it, we in our lives must do our duty ; that we must, 
like the brave and self-sacrificing men of the past, think first of 
the welfare of our country, and afterwards of the honor, the 
wealth, the prosperity of the individual : that we, too, must be 



FRANK OLIVER HALL. 89 

willing to work, to sacrifice, to suffer, if need be, for the good 
of the state. 

It is a great thing to have had noble citizens. It is a better 
thing to have them. It is a splendid thought that our fathers 
obeyed God and did their duty. It is better for us to obey 
God and do our duty. It is a proud thought that Cambridge 
has had a glorious history. It is better to face the future 
with promise and with determination. We are not at the end. 
There are problems before us, of which I may not speak at this 
time, the like whereof our fathers had not to face. The need 
is still, and ever will be, of strong, self-sacrificing men who 
value country above self. 

May the blessing of God be with the sons as it has been with 
the fathers, that we may be able to build a city in liberty, 
equality, fraternity, for the glory of God and the highest life of 
humanity. 



PROFESSOR ALBERT BUSHNELL IIART.i 

This is a time of rejoicing over the growth and prosperity 
of our beloved home city ! Everywhere there is pride and sat- 
isfaction in the results of the half-century, and a Cambridge 
man may say to-night, like Saul of Tarsus : " I am a citizen 
of no mean city." Throughout our streets there is abounding 
material evidence of this exultation. Banners celebrate it ; 
drums beat it home ; processions rejoice in it ; and banquets 
prolong it. But while we thus rejoice over the wx>alth and 
advance of the city, we have equal reason for pride in a moral 
and intellectual growth, the enjoyment and the celebration of 
which will continue when banners arc dust, when the drummers 
are gone, and when even the speakers of this week are for- 
gotten. 

The subject assigned to me to-night happily groups together 
two great systems of education, two institutions, both of which 
are almost as old as the town of Cambridge, and which will 
stand while the city has a name among men, — Harvard 
College and the public schools. Such an association is espe- 
cially suitable in this building ; for, when this structure was 
removed from its former site, where now the gymnasium stands. 
Harvard College lost an excellent neighbor. There is also an 
old-time relation between Harvard and the religious and moral 
forces of Cambridge. Were not the college and the First 
Church both founded in 1G36 ? Did not the college for nearly 
two centuries own the ferry which was the only direct connnu- 
nicationwith Boston and by which many divines made their way 
to preach in the parent church from which this society has 
sprung? Did not the town of Cambridge in 1672 subscribe 
what was then the lare:e sum of ^200 for a new church buikl- 
ing? 

Considering this early connection and long cooperation, it is 
surprising that there should now be such a jealousy of the 

1 Address delivered at the North Avenue Congregational Church, 
May 31. 



ALBERT BUSHNELL HART. 91 

college on the side of some of the Cambridge taxpayers who 
resent the large amount of untaxed real estate appropriated 
to college uses. Perhaps one might ask whether the value of 
adjacent real estate and the tax duplicate of Cambridge would 
be increased if the college were to be abandoned, and its site 
were to be cut up into building-lots. There is not a neighbor 
of Cambridge that would not be happy to pay a million dollars 
and forego taxation in perpetuity, if the college could be removed 
and placed within its borders. If there has ever been a time 
when the college showed insufficient gratitude for the protection 
which it received from the Cambridge government that time is 
past ; and in these days there is a revival of the feeling of 
common interest between the college and the city. This is seen 
especially in education : for the college has heartily cooperated 
with the school authorities in offering opportunities to Cam- 
bridge teachers, and thus in improving the training of the chil- 
dren. The city and the college have a common purpose, — that 
of beautifying our borders, stimulating young minds, and well 
governing the community. 

Let us look a little more closely into the relation between the 
educational institutions of Cambridge and the growth of the 
city. And, first, what have these institutions done for the city ? 
They have shared in and surpassed its growth. In 1846, Har- 
vard had about 600 in attendance ; in 1896, 4400 persons 
appear upon its catalogue, and that of Radcliffe College, as 
students. Its funds have increased from seven hundred and 
twenty-five thousand to eight millions of dollars ; its annual 
income from seventy thousand dollars to one million dollars. 
The growth of the public schools and the increase in the num- 
ber of buildings of various kinds has been as striking. In 
1846 the university in Cambridge was made up of the col- 
lege, the divinity school, and the law school. To this have 
been added the scientific school, the graduate school, all 
the great university museums, and great contributions to the 
library, the observatory, and the special collections : Har- 
vard was then a small local college ; it is now a world- 
renowned university. Besides the university, the city may 
now boast of three other institutions of advanced learning: 
Radcliffe College, the place in all the world in which a woman 
may have the best opportunities of university instruction ; the 
Episcopal Theological School, and the New-Church Theological 



92 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

School. Private schools have increased in like ratio ; and 
for the one feeble public high school of 184G, we now have 
three large and flourishing high schools. For a very elemen- 
tary and disjointed system of lower schools, we have substi- 
tuted the well-articulated city graded schools. In addition to 
the public schools, there are the well-appointed parochial 
schools. The city boasts also the Social Union and the Pros- 
pect Union, useful educational institutions ; the latter a most 
successful meeting-place for young men who have had the best 
advantages with young men who have had ordinary advan- 
tages of education. We have also a public library^ excel- 
lently and beautifully housed. In number of schools, colleges, 
and professional schools, in buildings and equipments, the city 
is immeasurably richer than it was in its infancy, fifty years 
ago. 

The efficiency of education of all kinds has increased faster 
even than the numbers of pupils or the money to educate them. 
Harvard in 1846 was. in its curriculum and methods of teach- 
ing, not much further advanced than is the Latin scliool to-day. 
The grammar schools of 189G are probably more effective than 
the high school of 1846. These institutions, working together, 
have furnished to the youth of this city such a combination of 
educational advantages as is not to be found anywhere else in 
the land. How many of our councilors, aldermen, and mayors 
have been pupils in the public school during the last fifty 
years ? How many have been graduates of the college ? How 
many, like Cambridge's governor, have passed through both 
parts of our educational combination ? One of the reasons for 
the remarkable success of the city government of Cambridge, 
which is undoubtedly the best enjoyed by any large city in the 
United States, is due to the fact that so many of the officers of 
Cambridge have availed themselves of these great oi)i)ortu- 
nities. 

These well-known advantages have been a powerful attraction 
both to visitors and residents. Abiel Holmes, in 1800, says of 
his town : " It is generally conceded that this town eminently 
combines the tranquillity of philosophic solitude with the 
choicest pleasures and advantages of refined society." And, 
indeed, what brought to Cambridge Longfellow, and Asa Gray, 
and Goodwin, and Agassiz, and Child, — men known among 
educated persons all over the world, — what brought them 



ALBERT BUSH NELL HART. 93 

hither but the educational institutions of Cambiidge ? Beck 
Plall and Follen Street commemorate two Germans drawn 
hither by this college. Who can count the number of families 
who have made their homes in Cambridge because of the schools 
and college for their children ? And no spot in America 
receives more pilgrims from at home and abroad than does 
Cambridge. Do they come to see the factories or the Harvard 
Bridge? They come because of the educational institutions 
and the intellectual society which gathers about them. To its 
educational institutions Cambridge owes the oft-repeated visits 
of men such as Washington Gladden, and Lyman Abbott, and 
Phillips Brooks ; and the brief presence of President Washing- 
ton, Lafayette, Andrew Jackson, President Grant, and President 
Cleveland. 

A rejmtation for the manufacture of useful goods is well 
worth having ; but Cambridge can never compete as a manu- 
facturing city with Lowell, or Lawrence, or Manchester, or Fall 
River, or Worcester. On the other hand, not one of those cities 
for a moment compares with Cambridge in public reputation. 
This reputation is not due to the university alone : the name 
of Cambridge is known wherever a book is known that has 
been printed at the University Press or the Riverside Press ; 
the schools of Cambridge are known wherever a teacher de- 
sires to learn the latest of reforms ; the writers of Cambridge 
are known wherever the English language is read. I remem- 
ber the pride with which once, in Westminster Abbey, I heard 
a mention of one of my townsmen, then recently dead. A 
plainly dressed woman, showing her child over the Abbey, 
came to a bust. " Ah ! " said she, " that is Longfellow, an 
American poet, a sweet poet ; you remember the ' Village 
Blacksmith ! ' " And wherever men love learning, love wit, love 
generous sympathy with the right, and love the truth, the name 
of James Russell Lowell is renowned. Cambridge is one of the 
world's renowned intellectual centres. 

The burden of obligation is, however, not all on the side of the 
educational institutions. If the city during the last fifty years 
has been favored l)y them, on its side it has done its duty to 
them. First of all, it has supported generously its system of 
public schools. In 1846, the school taxes were about |!5000, or 
fifty cents per head of population ; in 1896 the school expenses 
were about $250,000, or three dollars per head. The poor little 



94 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

high seliool building of 1846 is soon to be replaced by three 
beautiful and commodious buildings costing together nearly 
$600,000 : Cambridge does not stint her schools. The city has 
well supported its educational institutions in another way, — by 
sending the children to them ; and the better the schools the 
larger the number of pupils in the higher grades. Cambridge 
has also furnished a steady stream of students to Harvard 
College, among whom may be counted Thomas Wentworth 
Iligginson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and William Eustis 
Russell. 

The city has also well protected the institutions of learning. 
No city in this conunonwealth, which has the best compulsory 
educational law in the country, so efficiently administers its 
truant system as Cambridge. And, above all, the majority of 
the voters of Cambiidge, in ten successive elections have pro- 
tected not only the schools but the college by the no-license vote. 
In the name of the college I desire to thank the people of our 
city for removing a dangerous temptation from the students of 
the college. 

This is a splendid tradition of fifty years, indeed of two 
hundred and fifty years. In the midst of our rejoicing, let us 
not forget wherein the greatness and distinction of this city 
lies. Let us also not forget the duty which we owe to posterity. 
If the last two generations have so improved and sustained 
schools and college, we shall be inferior to them if we simply 
liold our own. As streets increase, let school buildings 
increase. As people come into Cambridge, let improvements 
come into our schools. We have received a sfreat heritaefe, and 
shall be unfaithful stewards if we do not enlarge it. So shall 
" the streets of the city be full of children, playing in the streets 
thereof." 



HONORABLE FRANK ALPINE HILL, Litt. D.,i 

SECRETARY OF THE STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION. 

I HAVE a friend, a remarkably bright fellow, but his wit is 
an intermittent spring. When the spring is in action, he is 
the life of a dinner party, but woe to that life if the hostess in 
some moment of awkward silence should so far forget herself 
as to beseech him to be witty. No more bubbling from that 
spring while the dinner lasts. 

And yet that is precisely what the hostess has done this 
afternoon. She has as much as said : " Here are my bright 
boys — are n't they bright ? — and my lovely girls — are n't 
they lovely? — and their teachers and lots of my dearest 
friends. It is my best possible spread, my prettiest dishes and 
spoons, and it won't come again for fifty yeai's. Now please, 
sir, sparkle all over as you never sparkled before ! " That is 
enough, my friends, to seal the very fountains of genius. 

The story goes how Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Alcott, 
and the rest started a club once out in Concord. I fancy their 
aim was to consider the world, which way it was drifting, and 
whether, if they pulled together, they could swerve it from 
that drift or not. But they were all so imbued with the neces- 
sity of saying each his brightest and profoundest say that they 
did n't say much of anything, and so the club fell through. 
This is what often comes from great expectations. 

Our theme this afternoon is the rather vague and glittering 
one of the city's fiftieth anniversary. It suggests minor themes 
by the score. Here is a good one, for instance, in the Latin 
inscription on the wall above this platform. There is a deal 
of Cambridge history in it. I beg the president of the uni- 
versity, the mayor of the city, and others here not to be dis- 
turbed ; I have n't the remotest intention of calling them up to 
translate it. I assume that they and you and every Cantabri- 

1 Address delivered to the pupils of the English High and Latin schools, 
and the higher grades of the Parochial schools, at Sanders Theatre, June 2. 



96 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

gian can handle it, and put it, too, into that chaste and elegant 
English that marks the speech of a university city. Indeed, 
the translation of this passage is the favorite pastime of Cam- 
bridge audiences here, when they tire of the speakers. 

If this were a millionth anniversary now instead of the 
fiftieth, we might, with the aid of the university museum, note 
some contrasts between the past and present worth talking 
about, — real sensational contrasts that would please the news- 
papers, — an ancestry swinging among the treetops at one end 
of the line, their descendants riding on two wheels at the 
other ; gibberish at the beginning of the evolution, Greek at 
the end of it ; and so on. 

Or if this were a millennial occasion, like the brilliant cele- 
bration now going on at Buda Pesth in Hungary, it would still 
offer chances for a striking antithesis or two. 

But being only a fiftieth anniversary — well, we shall have 
to put up with such mild contrasts as we can find. 

A schoolmaster's thoughts naturally run to-day to the past 
and the present of Cambridge school conditions. If we go 
back fifty or sixty years, we shall find an Arcadian simjilicitj^ 
if not a barbaric rudeness, in some of these conditions. 

If all the school buildings in the state sixty years ago had 
been sold for what they would bring, they would not have 
yielded money enough to pay for the buildings, present and 
proposed, of the Cambridge High and Latin schools. Cam- 
bridge had her share of these poor buildings. Just before we 
became a city, the Cambridge School Committee under the 
leadership of Kev. William A. Stearns, subsequently president 
of Amherst, fearlessly showed up every schoolhouse in town. 
It was, on the whole, a pitiable picture, abounding in such 
epithets as these : " old, leaky, and rotten ; " " shamefully 
marked, dirty, and uninviting ; " " marred with words and cuts 
too recent to allow any apology for the depravity that occa- 
sioned them ; " and so on. I do not mean to iinj)ly that the 
spirit of vandalism was then general in the schools, but only 
this, — that what there was could not be checked, and so the 
buildings suffered under its cumulative effects until they be- 
came intolerable. 

The committee tried to be pist towards the schoolhouses they 
denounced. One of these buildings, for instance, they de- 
scribed as " truly a noble structure," although they said in the 



i 



FRANK ALPINE HILL. 97 

same breath that it was badly ventilated, its floors shrunken 
and unclean, its plastering falling, and its cellar all afloat. 
Another was even " magnificent," but all its magnificence — it 
cost five or six thousand dollars, I think — did not save it from 
criticism, for it was in many points very defective. From that 
day to the present, there has been a steady gain in schoolhouse 
construction and conditions. 

It was counted a marvelous feat that during Horace Mann's 
twelve years of service the state expended two million dollars 
on her schoolhouses. The state now expends more than that 
sum in a single year in erecting new buildings and improving 
old ones. And superb structures many of them are — how 
superb the boys and girls of to-day who attend school in them 
are never likely to know except as they listen to stories of the 
weather-worn, rickety schoolhouses their ancestors used to 
go to. 

If, my young friends, you will do as well in study, manners, 
manliness, womanliness, as the city has done for you in brick 
and mortar and material surroundings, the cup of municipal 
joy will be filled to the brim. 

Then there is the equipment of the schools. Here, too, there 
have been some great strides. Let me picture to you the 
equipment of a school where I once taught a winter term more 
years ago than I dare to tell, — but it was n't fifty, sir, I assure 
you, — a typical, down -east ungraded school, its building a 
disreputable survivor of the thousands that were common in 
New England before Cambridge ceased to be a town. 

It was in the outlying ward of a city and yet on the edge of 
the wilderness. It was only the winter before that a moose 
came down out of the woods, passed by the schoolfiouse win- 
dows, crossed the St. Croix on the ice, and disappeared in the 
New Brunswick forest. 

It might have been a high school, — I had a boy in Homer 
fitting for Harvard. It might have been a primary school, — I 
had children learning their letters. I taught them the old- 
fashioned, senseless way, — this is A, what is this ? The method 
of suspended animation it was even then called, but I did not 
know it. 

Your teachers have polished desks of cherry, quartered oak, 
and what not. My desk was not a desk, but a table of cheap, 
unpainted pine, with three legs ; the fourth I made myself with 



98 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

edging from the school woodpile. Your best blackboards are 
of smooth, black, agreeable slate. I was limited to a frame of 
blackened boards, worn a dingy white, splintery, with here and 
there a knot-hole. You have carefully prepared crayons, the 
dust reduced to a minimum and the surface glazed for dainty 
fingers. My crayons were angular lumps direct from the chalk 
cliffs of England that would scratch a little, crumble a little, 
and mark a little in unexpected places. 

There has always been plenty of pure air, — whole skyf uls 
of it. In the new Latin school building this air will be warmed 
in reasonable quantity, gently fanned through the rooms and 
corridors, and kept, I suppose, at a uniform temperature by 
automatic regulators. My schoolhouse seldom got much of this 
air inside except in great freezing doses through the doors at 
the wrong times ; and as for heating — well, there was the great 
rusty box-stove whose roaring fire fairly made the near benches 
smoke, but scarcely reached the pupils shivering in the corners. 
I can see its long funnel even now, with drip-pans at the joints 
to catch the sooty condensations, the pans themselves leaking 
inky drops to the floor. 

You have free text-books, abundant, beautiful, fascinating ; 
my pupils brought to school indescribable odds and ends of 
books, in all stages of use and disuse, family heirlooms or per- 
haps they were borrowed, not enough to go around, and seldom 
three alike. Maps, globes, reference books, music, drawing, — 
you have them all, not in such kind and quantity, perhaps, as 
you need, but still you have them. I had none of these things. 

Even the school janitor as you know him is a creation of 
modern need, a concession to modern luxury. In the school I 
am describing the pupils were their own janitors, and the 
teacher, in emergencies, janitor-in-chief. 

But enough in this line. The picture I have given you does 
not belong to 1846, indeed, but it has details that would fit 
many a Cambridge school at that time. 

And when it comes to methods of teaching, the fifty years 
have witnessed changes equally marked. Let me cite a single 
method that belongs to the modern school of the better sort, — 
the laboratory method, so-called, of learning by doing. 

Nothing can make so deep an impression upon you in school 
as what you do with eyes, ears, hands, and mind working to- 
gether. Things are branded into the mind so as to stay. Now 



FRANK ALPINE HILL. 99 

if the things that get fixed in this way are well-selected things, 
if they are the great root ideas of the subjects to study, they 
become centres of growth, — stout mental pegs, as it were, on 
which you can scarcely help hanging what belongs there, and 
by which it is easy to hold what is hung there. 

Now the laboratory method, the work method, is nature's 
own way of fixing ideas. You swim, you skate, you play base- 
ball, you dance, you ride bicycles, by laboratory methods. So 
far as the children in the schools handle specimens, perform 
experiments, make observations, sketch what they see, arrive at 
some results themselves, their methods are those of the labora- 
tory. 

The best Massachusetts high schools to-day are far ahead of 
the colleges of fifty years ago, or even of thirty years ago, in 
their facilities for individual laboratory work. For myself, I 
never tried an experiment in a college class, or worked with a 
piece of apparatus there, or took a written examination there, 
or did anything there beyond sitting on a plank bench and lis- 
tening to the professor, standing on my feet to be quizzed by 
him, and going to the blackboard to do examples for him. 

Learning by doing has received its most extended develop- 
ment to-day in the high manual training school. The manual 
training school of my boyhood was the family woodpile and 
sawhorse ; and as for the instruction, — that was characterized 
chiefly by a certain insatiable demand for kindling wood that I 
found it hard to keep up with. 

Most of the ideas that we call modern, however, are modern 
only in the sense that modern schools are beginning to reduce 
them to practice. They were the hopes of the last generation 
and the dreams of earlier generations. The laboratory idea — 
that was advocated by the great Comenius nearly three centu- 
ries ago. Dr. Leonard Hoar, president of Harvard College, 
advocated it in 1672. It was only three days after his installa- 
tion that he wrote a letter to his friend Robert Boyle in which 
he bewailed the " ruins " — that was his word — into v/liich the 
college had fallen. Among the measures to " resuscitate " the 
college. Dr. Hoar proposed " a large well-sheltered garden and 
orchard for students addicted to planting," — the germ, you see, 
of the modern agricultural college. Secondly, " an ergaste- 
rium for mechanick fancies ; " the word is a rich one and worth 
spelling, — e-r-g-a-s-t-e-r-i-u-m, coming from the Greek through 



100 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

the Latin, and meaning a workshop, — the first New England 
hint, so far as I know, of the modern manual training school. 
And, thirdly, " a laboratory chemical for those philosophers that 
by their senses would cultivate their understandings, for," said 
the practical president, " readings or notions only are husky 
provender," — the first New England suggestion of the modern 
scientific laboratory. 

It was of no use. Dr. Hoar was two hundred years ahead of 
the college and his times. It has been left for the Harvard of 
to-day, the Harvard of the city of Cambridge and not of the 
town, to rise to this early conception of the laboratory idea. 
It is an idea that belongs to the lower schools as to the higher, 
— to all educxtion, not to sections of it here and there. The 
schools of fifty years ago knew very little about the idea. 
Those that considered it at all doubtless regarded it as visionary 
and impracticable. How often it happens in this world when 
people shake their heads and say things cannot be done that 
they are speedily thereafter confronted by the things themselves 
actually and provokingly completed and in operation ! 

Of course, the laboratory idea is something more than a mere 
idea. It isn't simply bustling about with things. It needs 
good objective points and right guidance. Particularly does it 
need instructors who can see the great superstructure at whose 
foundations the student is working, — the glorious end from the 
humble beginning. And the transcendent merit of the method 
to him who uses it aright is that it gives him a real practical 
working grip of what otherwise is likely to be misty, uncertain, 
and next to profitless. 

I was at the great electrical exhibit in New York city 
recently. I heard the roar of Niagara there as it was brought 
over the wires from the falls five hundred miles away. I was 
present at the sending of that famous dispatch by Chauncey M. 
Depew from the north gallery to the south gallery of the exhibi- 
tion hall, a distance of 28,600 miles ; the dispatch traveling to 
the Pacific coast, thence back across the continent, under the 
Atlantic to London, to Malta, to Bombay, to Shanghai, to To- 
kio in Japan, then returning by the same route ; the discharge 
of a cannon announcing its departure from the one gallery, a 
second discharge fifty minutes later its arrival at the other, 
and a huge map of the world, with red lines for the wires and 
incandescent lamps for the stations, showing the marvelous 
pathway to the audience. 



FRANK ALPINE HILL. 101 

I saw no end there of ingenious uses of electricity. Talk of 
Aladdin's lamp, — it is a poor little caudle in the presence of 
this brilliant force. To the uninitiated a great electrical exhibit 
is an uncanny maze of marvels, while Edison, Tesla, and the rest 
are veritable wizards whom the lightnings obey. And yet with 
a few elementary principles such as any Cambridge high school 
pupil can fix for himself in school laboratory practice one can 
imlock the mysteries of the New York exhibit, barring always 
the inner mystery of electricity itself, and get a new view of 
that unity in variety which marks the handiwork of man as 
well as the higher handiwork of nature. 

No one can compare the schools of fifty years ago with those 
of to-day without noting the progress that has been made in dis- 
cipline. This is a subject that concerns you pretty closely, my 
young friends. The success or the failure of modern ideas 
of discipline turns on your response to those ideas. The rela- 
tions of teachers and pupils fifty years ago were more fre- 
quently strained relations than those of to-day, — more like 
those of warfare than those of peace. Disciplining a school 
then was reducing it to subjection and holding it there. 
It meant external authority, physical prowess, ability to handle 
the sturdiest rebel in school, the relentless use of the birch. 

As many as three hundred or four hundred schools a year 
used to be closed in this state fifty and sixty years ago because 
of the insubordination of the pupils or the incompetency of the 
teachers. All that has come to an end. I do not mean, teach- 
ers, that that millennial time has come in which the trials of 
governing have ceased, but only this, — that you are meeting 
these trials more sensibly and more successfully than they were 
met years ago in the town of Cambridge. There are frail 
women among you ruling great boys in a superb way by sheer 
force of personality and tact, — boys who under the harsh dis- 
cipline of the old-time masters would have turned half of them 
out of doors. 

The aim of the schools of to-day, so far as discipline is con- 
cerned, is to train you, my young friends, to intelligent self-con- 
trol, and to an intelligent regard, as well, for the rights and 
welfare of others ; in time you must be intrusted to your own 
control. The safe transition from the one control to the other 
should be effected before your schooling is over. It is precisely 
the transfer that good citizenship requires. 



102 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

Whether, my young friends, you are better scholars than the 
boys and girls of Canibridgetown, or more self-reliant, or better- 
mannered, or more manly or womanly than they, I hardly dare 
to discuss. If I say you are not, the surviving boys and girls 
of Cambridgetown will rush to the defense of their children and 
children's children. If I say you are, these same boys and girls 
of Cambridgetown will rise in defense of themselves. The 
ground, you see, craves wary walking. It might be prudent to 
postpone such queries until 194G. 

Edward Everett asked one of these pertinent questions about 
Cambridge schoolboys nearly fifty years ago. lie was once 
in company with Dr. Woods, president of Bowdoin College, 
and approaching a certain schoolhouse of the town. Suddenly 
they were greeted, not with bows, as would befit the coming of 
two of New England's most accomplished gentlemen, but with a 
volley of snowballs. " Has the age of boy chivalry," inquired 
Everett, alluding to this incident in his Cambridge High School 
address, — " has the age of boy chivalry passed away ? " 

There was a boy chivalry once that thrilled all Europe, — 
that of the children's crusade seven centuries ago. Think of 
fifty thousand boys setting out unarmed to rescue Palestine 
from the infidel, to plant the cross for the crescent on the 
battlements of Jerusalem ! It was a wild scheme, and it came 
to a dreadful end. The boys would have been really better off 
snowballing college presidents. But it meant some precious 
things after all. There was the stirring of young hearts ; there 
was the power of young ideals ; there was the spirit of young 
sacrifice. What a young chivalry for Cambridge to be proud 
of this fiftieth year — how it would delight the shades of Woods 
and Everett — if to the fervor, the aspiration, the sacrifice of 
young crusaders, the boys and girls of Cambridge should add 
the golden crown of wisdom ! 

I have a pretty strong conviction — I am going to express it, 
come what will — that you are a little better off in every way 
than the boys and girls of 184G, because of the improvements 
I have mentioned. If you are not, you have something to an- 
swer for. And I express this conviction in spite of the fact 
that your parents and teachers are very prone to hold up 
before you the superior examples of their own wonderful 
youth. I regret to say that this is an old illusion ; it was 
shown up in Ecclesiastes away back in Bible times, for even 



FRANK ALPINE HILL. 103 

then the people were wont to claim that the former days were 
better than their own ; and I suppose that fifty years hence 
you yourselves, as parents and teachers, will be innocently tell- 
ing the same deceptive story to the boys and girls of that time. 

Let me express the wish, my young friends, that you will all 
happily meet here again in 1946. You will excuse me if I do 
not come too. 

For a closing sentiment, let me give you " The Cambridge 
Idea." You will find it defined in the " Cambridge Book of 
1896." It comes from the wisdom and heart of one ^ who has 
proved himself an ideal citizen and whom the citizens of Cam- 
bridge, without distinction of party or creed, assembled last 
evening to honor. Get hold of that idea, my young friends. 
Let it lift you to that higher citizenship which is the sole hope 
of our country. Remember this : there is not a civic virtue — 
I care not what it is — that may not have its noble and exact- 
ing counterpart in the schools. 

Municipal progressiveness, integrity, purity, reverence for 
law, whatever else adorns municipal life, — what are all these 
but expressions in a wider field of the same virtues that under- 
lie respect for school authority and institutions, that are em- 
bodied in school integrity and honor, that blossom forth in a 
love for order, cleanliness, and beauty in all school conditions, 
that incite to the highest and best in school attainments ? 

While our elders stand for the virtues and graces of citizen- 
ship in municipal life, let us stand for the virtues and graces 
of citizenship in the life of our beloved schools. 

^ Rev. David N. Beach, D. D., recently called to the Plymouth Church, 
Minneapolis. 



GEORGE HENRY HOWARD.i 



Cambridge at first seems to have been designed merely as a 
fortified place, very small in extent. Charlestown, on the north- 
erly side of the Charles River, had already been settled, but 
no line of separation had been established. Cambridge was 
without doubt selected as a fine place for a fortified town, soon 
after the arrival of Winthroj), in 1G30. Houses were erected 
in 1631, by Thomas Dudley, deputy-governor, and a few others. 
It was ordered in 1631-32 to levy on the several plantations 
towards the making of a palisade about the New Town. 

No definite line of division between the New Town and 
Charlestown was made until March, 1632 or '33. It was called 
"Newtowne" until May 2, 1638, when the General Court 
ordered that the New Town should henceforward be called 
" Cambridge." This is the only act of incorporation to be 
found on record. 

The line established March 6, 1632 or '33, dividing Charles- 
town from Cambridge, or Newtowne, was substantially the 
sauie as that which now divides Somerville from Cambridge, 
Newtowne extended eight miles into the country from the 
meeting-house. The territory embraced what is now Arlington, 
and the principal part of Lexington. On June 14, 1642, still 
another grant was made by the General Court, extending our 
boundaries to the Shawsheen Riv^er. Cambridge then included 
the present town of Billerica, parts of Bedford, Carlisle, and a 
part of Tewksbury. The township had now attained its full 
size, — in shape somewhat like an hour-glass, — about thirty- 
five miles in length, wide at each extremity, and not much more 
than one mile in width in the central part, where the original 
settlement was made. Brighton and Newton are wholly on the 
southerly side of Charles River. That portion of Dedham now 
known as Need ham was also a part of Cambridge. 

Cambridge lost a part of its length in 1655, when the Gen- 

' Abstract of an address delivered to the pupils of the Thorudike Gram- 
mar School, June 2. 



GEORGE HENRY HOWARD. 105 

eral Court incoi'iDorated the town of Billeriea. In 1688, New- 
ton was incorporated, and became a separate township. The 
northwesterly part of the territory remaining in Cambridge — 
for many years called " The Farms " — was made a separate 
town March 20, 1713, called Lexington. Nothing more was 
taken from Cambridge for nearly a century, but one addition 
was made from Watertown in 1754. 

The whole territory south of the Charles River was incorpo- 
rated under the name of Brighton, February 24, 1837. West 
Cambridge and Arlington were also taken, and Cambridge was 
reduced substantially to the present limits. Attempts have 
been made several times since for a further division, but the 
incorporation as a city removed most of the difficulties, and it 
is hoped no more attempts will be made. 

In 1807 and 1808, the General Court granted to Mr. Craigie, 
and others, the right to erect a bridge from Lechmere Point to 
Boston. The first deed of a house lot in East Cambridge, en- 
tered on the records, is dated August 20, 1810, and conveys to 
Samuel S. Green the lot on the corner of Cambridge and Sec- 
ond streets. West Boston Bridge was opened for travel, No- 
vember 23, 1793. January 30, 1858, both bridges became free 
public avenues forever. On that occasion the bells in the city 
were rung, a salute was fired, and there was a long procession 
escorted by the National Lancers. 

On the eve of the memorable 19th of April, 1775, when the 
British troops landed at Lechmere Point, under cover of night, 
crossed the marshes to the Milk Row Road (now Milk Street, 
Somerville), and marched through Beach Street to Menotomy, 
and thence to Lexington and Concord, Captain Thatcher and 
his company of Cambridge men were among the foremost to 
rally. There is a tradition that a British soldier, becoming 
sick, was left at Lechmere Point, and that the occupant of the 
house gave the alarm, which, with Paul Revere's more thrilling 
warnings, aroused the Minute-Men, who, the next day, fired that 
" shot that was heard around the world." 



HONORABLE CHESTER WARD KINGSLEY.i 

Your committee on tree were in some doubt as to what 
was expected of them, hut after conferring together conckided 
that if they could find a location and a tree, that had some 
historical associations connected with them in Cambridge, it 
might be of some use to preserve the associations, by setting 
out such a tree in such a place. 

We found in the " History of Cambridge," by Abiel Holmes, 
published in the year 1801, that in the early days of " The 
Massachusetts Bay Colony " (see page 9) " that in some of the 
first years the annual election of the Governor and Magistrates 
were holden in this town " (then called Newtowne). " The 
people on these occasions assembled under an oak-tree, which 
long remained a venerable monument of the Freedom, Patriot- 
ism, and Purity of the ancestors of New England." We further 
found in Charles Francis Adams's " Three Episodes of INIassa- 
chusetts History " (vol. i. pp. 451-454), " that on May 27th, 
1637, one of these elections was held on a clear warm day, 
when at one o'clock the freemen of the Colony gathered in 
groups about a large oak-tree which stood on the north side 
of what is now Cambridge Common." On this spot the late 
Abiel Holmes (former i:)astor of the First Church) in 1835 
planted an oak-tree which did not long survive. By the as- 
sistance of Mr. John Holmes, son of Abiel, one of our vener- 
able townsmen, we were enabled to identify the spot where the 
original tree was located. 

We also learned that Mr. Beard of the Shady Hill Nurseries 
had an elm-tree that he knew was grown from a scion taken 
from the " Washington Elm," which he would present to the 
city. This seemed to us a good reason why we should accept 
this tree, as any doubt about its origin would not attach to it as 
it miglit to a seedling. 

We therefore accepted the tree, and have had it set out on the 

^ Address delivered at the planting of the Memorial Tree ou Cambridge 
Common, June 3. 



CHESTER WARD KINGSLEY. 107 

common nearly opposite Holmes Place. AVe also provided a 
granite tablet setting forth briefly why it is there, which will 
now be unveiled, and this inscription will be seen : " On this 
spot in 1630 stood an ancient oak, under which were held Colo- 
nial Elections.^ This scion of the Washington Elm^ was planted 
May, 1896." 

It is very interesting to read of the strong political contests 
of that early day. The parties were largely divided on theolo- 
gical questions. At the time we refer to, the i)arties were 
divided between the adherents of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson with 
her followers, who were the supporters of Sir Harry Vane for 
governor, he being a candidate for reelection ; while opposed 
to him was ex-Governor John Winthrop, with Rev. John 
Wilson and his followers, who claimed to represent the estab- 
lished church and the pure doctrines of the Bible. There was 
great excitement. " There was a large gathering from all the 
regions thereabout : most of the notables of the Province, 
whether Magistrates or clergy, were among the large number 
present. In the midst of the tumult Rev. John Wilson, a large 
man, then about fifty years old, climbed up against the trunk of 
the Oak-Tree, and, clinging to one of the branches, with great 
power addressed the crowd ; so great was the effect that an 
election was at once proceeded with, and Winthrop was again 
elected Governor, defeating Sir Harry Vane and the adherents 
of Anne Hutchinson." It is interesting to note the points of 
difference between these, in that day, great parties, — Anne 
Hutchinson holding that the Bible revealed to us a gospel of 
grace and works, while John Wilson held that it was a gospel 
of grace and faith. 

How happy we should be, that in our day, it is agreed that 
faith and works should go hand in hand, and no such differences 
of opinion as then existed now enter into our politics. 

In that day no one could vote unless he was a member of 
the established church. The legal connection between church 
and state was long ago abolished, leaving every one to worship 
God according to the dictates of his own conscience ; and we, 
to-day, dedicate this tree as a monument of the great advance 
that has been made since colonial times, in both religious and 
political liberty. 

1 See note, p. 22. ^ See note, p. 22. 



HONORABLE CHARLES JOHN McINTIRE.,i 

FIRST JUDGE OF PROBATE, MIDDLESEX COUNTY. 

I AM proud to call Cambridge my birthplace ; and I am glad 
to have had my early training in her schools. Looking upon 
you here assembled to-day recalls memories of the High and 
Latin School, when I took part in similar scenes, under the 
same master, surrounded by companions who long since have 
entered into the ranks of manhood and womanhood. Many of 
these have passed from earth, some laying down their lives on 
fields of battle in sacrifice for their country. All were greatly 
influenced throughout their lives by the associations and 
instructions of the school. You are soon to go out and take 
your places in the community, — the boys to assist in its gov- 
ernment, and the girls, as sisters, wives, and mothers, to guide 
and advise their brothers, husbands, and sons. 

Why are we called upon to lay down our tasks and gather at 
this time to celebrate the anniversary of our city ? Not because 
we have any cause to rejoice in emerging from the simple gov. 
ernment of a town, — for the to^\^l government of New England 
is acknowledged to be the best kind of government, the nearest 
to the people, and from which they only depart when the com- 
munity grows too large to use it. Nor does the period of fifty 
years impress us as a very long space of time in the life of 
a municipality : Sixteen years ago we celebrated the two hun- 
dred and fiftieth anniversary of the time when our ancestors 
came here and founded their fortified town. 

We come together because the half-century mark makes a 
convenient place to pause and contemplate what has been 
accomplished ; to do honor to those who through trials and 
struffffles have laid the foundations of our beautiful city ; and 
to resolve to keep in the paths so well laid out for us. It is 
because it is necessary frequently to call our attention to the 

1 Address delivered to the pupils of the English High and Latin schools 
and the higher grades of the Parochial schools, at Sanders Theatre, June 2. 



CHARLES JOHN McINTIRE. 109 

duty we owe to our city and country in order that we may per- 
petuate good government. 

Only this morning, at the Putnam School in ward three, I was 
greatly impressed with the importance of such celebrations as 
a part of our necessary instruction. While there, looking at 
the pupils, and taking myself back over the intervening period 
of years to the time when I myself sat there under the eye of 
Master Cogswell, I was struck by the presence of a number of 
bright olive-skinned, black-eyed children, who seemed more 
eager to hear and to see all that was taking place than their 
fellows. These, I was told, are the children of Portuguese 
parents who have recently come to our city in large numbers to 
better their condition. I learned, moreover, that but few of 
such children get so far as the grammar grade, the necessities 
of their parents causing them to be put to work as soon as they 
reach the legal age. 

I reflected, looking upon these, that they have come to stay. 
They are to be American citizens, and, when grown to manhood 
and womanhood, to have their influence for good or evil in our 
community. They are soon to take part in the government of 
the city, state, and nation. What advantages have they had? 
What are they having in order to understand how to become 
good citizens under a republican form of government ? Their 
parents never heard of the Pilgrim Fathers, of Leonard Cal- 
vert, of William Penn, of Roger Williams, or of any of the 
founders of the colonies. The names of Washington, Frank- 
lin, Jefferson, Adams, and the makers of our independence are 
unfamiliar to their ears. Lincoln, Sherman, Grant, Sheridan, 
and the saviours of our country mean nothing to them. These 
children converse with their parents in a foreign tongue and 
upon subjects connected with a foreign soil. 

In the northern part of our city are many other children 
who have but recently come from the French-speaking prov- 
inces of Canada. In Boston, whole districts are overflowing 
with families from sunny Italy, and others with exiles from 
Russian Poland. All these intend to stay. They wish to be, 
and it is our duty to make of them, good citizens of our free 
republic. Frequent celebrations like this serve to awaken their 
interest, to make them inquire, to force them to see, and hear, 
and learn that which they could never get at home, nor from 
the study of books. 



110 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

In Cambridge we are blessed with an abundance of object- 
lessons which illustrate the history of our country and our 
municipality. Every ward has them ; and I believe there is 
not a schoolhouse in the city, but the pupils of which in pass- 
ing to or from school are in sight of one or more. In this 
ward, the older portion of our community, there are so many, 
and they are so familiar, that it is unnecessary to name them. 
Each year, hundreds of people from far and near come throng- 
ing to see them and to gain inspiration. But in the other sec- 
tions they are not so generally known or so often mentioned. 

In the Cambridgeport wards is the spot where the gallant Put- 
nam and his boys encamped upon luman and Austin streets ; 
Fort Washington, which guarded the river ; and the building 
wherein was enrolled the first company enlisted as volunteers 
for the saving of the Union. In North Cambridge is the road 
to Menotomy down which the British came fleeing from their 
victorious pursuers on that memorable 19th of April ; and 
the hallowed spot where our own citizens fell; also the site 
of Camp Cameron, where so many of our soldiers encamped 
during the last war, before going to the front. And, last but 
not least, in East Cambridge is Fort Putnam, the site of which 
is marked by the handsomest school biiilding in the ward ; and 
the place beyond, on the bank of the river, where Lieutenant- 
Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn, with their forces, made land- 
ing in the night preceding their day of rout and distress, after 
embarking across the river, at Boston Common, from whence 
they proceeded on their march to Lexington and Concord. 

From these, and other precious monuments by which we are 
surrounded, we can read the history of our city, the work of 
our ancestors and predecessors, in successive stages, from the 
building of the palisaded town, through their struggle for 
independence, their battle to save the country from dismem- 
berment and dishonor, dowTi to the present day. How greatly 
are we favored thereby ! It is our duty frequently to refer to 
them in our homes, in our schools, and on occasions like this, 
so that, inspired by the memories of civic virtue which they 
bring up, when the time arrives that the government of our 
good city comes to our care we will be prepared to receive it as 
a sacred trust and inheritance, and to transmit it unsullied to 
our successors. 



KEVEREND ALEXANDER McKENZIE, D. D.i 

" Cambridge is a shire town, in the county of Middlesex, 
It lies in 42 deg. 23 min. north latitude, and 71 deg. west 
longitude from London." This is the topographical and 
unimaginative beginning of Dr. Holmes's " History of Cam- 
bridge." Dr. Paige, in his history, gives the latitude 42 deg. 
22 min., and the longitude at 71. deg. 6 min. The difference 
may be accounted for in part by the circumstance that one 
reckoned from London, and the other from Greenwich. It is 
to be noted also that the point in Cambridge which was chosen 
for the measurement was probably different in the two cases. 
The seat of government was movable and had come from Har- 
vard Square to Norfolk Street, and thence to the city hall 
which has been recently left. Dr. Paige remarks that the 
former city hall stands exactly on the longitudinal line and 
about a hundred yards south of the parallel of latitude indi- 
cated by him. I do not know that it has any significance, 
but it is well to be on our guard, and I therefore call attention 
to the fact that in the last migration of the government the 
city hall and all which appertains to it have been slipped off 
the meridian. 

Whatever changes have taken place in boundary lines, the 
ancient village, the modern town, and the present city have held 
the land chosen two hundred and sixty years ago. The hills 
which diversified the ground have for the most part lost their 
prominence. " Newtowne was first intended for a city," wrote 
the author of " New England's Prospect." Upon serious con- 
sideration it was not thought best to have the city here on ac- 
count of the distance from the sea. But destiny which was then 
denied has since been fidfilled, as we are witnesses. The same 
author lavishes admiration on the neat and well-compacted town, 
with its many fair structures, and many " handsome contrived 
streets." The phrase is well chosen, — the older streets have 
certainly been contrived. He is accurate again in saying, " The 

^ Address delivered at the public meeting in Sanders Theatre, June 2. 



112 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

inhabitants most of them are very rich." We may smile at 
this account of our estate. But riches are by no means limited 
to money, of which we have our share. If they include the im- 
material wealth, which is the better and more permanent pos- 
session, we are very rich. It is certainly worth noting that a 
man's fortune has little to do with his standing in this commu- 
nity. 

It is not by any sudden change that the village of 1631 has 
become the city in whose greatness we are now rejoicing. 
Steadily has the advance been made. This is the city of the 
people. It is like other towns in many respects, but it has its 
preeminence in that it was here the statesmen and scholars of 
the beginning placed their college. This, more than any other 
thing, has given character and influence and renown to the 
village and the city. The legend on the college gate is the 
deep thought of the men who had brought across the sea the 
materials for a college which should give life and form to 
their settlement. They did not bring land, for there was more 
land here than in England. They did not bring buildings, for 
it was easier and cheaper to construct them here, as they came 
to be in need of them. But they brought men, and books, and 
the love of learning, and a spirit equal to their great enterprise. 

Harvard College was formed by small gifts from great men. 
The list of donations is both pathetic and prophetic. We keep 
this portion of our festival within the college walls, and it is 
right that we should be here, for this is the people's college, of 
them and for them. The city was much to the college, but not 
all. Other interests have arisen to make a community about 
the college. There is something restful and delightfid in a 
village which is a college and little more. The life is serene 
within its ivied halls, and along its shaded walks. It' is a fine 
place to grow old in at one's leisure. But there are advantages 
for teachers and students in the busy life of a city, where the 
scholars may feel the world, and know its stir and ambition and 
take of its force. The town and city have helped the college. 
From the first there have been prosperous business enterprises 
here. In 1639, Stephen Daye set up his printing-press, which 
soon passed into the hands of Samuel Greene. The first book 
they printed was " The Freeman's Oath," then Pierce's " New 
England Almanac," and then " The Psalms, newly turned into 
metre." This man Greene, besides his printing, was town 



ALEXANDER McKENZIE. 113 

clerk and soldier. Perhaps he needed many occupations to 
maintain his nineteen children. There were other kinds of 
business. In the northwest parish was a card manufactory, 
using a machine invented in the spring of 1797, by Amos 
Whittemore. The machine was creditable to native ingenuity, 
for it could bend and cut and stick the teeth of the cards by 
a single operation. In 1799, William Whittemore & Co. 
opened their factory with twenty-three machines, sticking two 
hundred dozen pairs of cards in a week. Forty persons were 
employed in this establishment, which was forty-six feet square, 
and the cards sold for seven dollars per dozen pairs. In the 
same parish was a brook, which started in Lexington and finally 
discharged its waters into the Mystic River. One sawmill 
and three gristmills were upon this stream, and the historian 
points out the advantage to those who were transporting their 
grain to Boston in having it converted into meal at one of these 
mills. The meal would be more salable at the metropolis. 

Then at Charles River, . William Winthrop, Esq., kept a 
very commodious wharf, where great quantities of wood and 
lumber were unladen and placed on sale. The river there was 
twenty-two rods wide. 

This record was made in 1800, and the great event which 
delighted the historian was the recent opening of the West 
Boston Bridge. It was built by a corporation, at a cost of 
•f 76,700. The enthusiasm of the good Dr. Holmes is delight- 
ful. " It is very handsomely constructed ; and, when lighted 
by its two rows of lamps, extending a mile and a quarter, pre- 
sents a vista, which has a fine effect." It is easy to believe 
this, and one can readily enter into the delights of the writer as 
his eye runs down the mile and a quarter of oil lamps. 

The e'ffect of this enterprise was soon seen. Trade moved 
towards the centi-e of the town and down to the new bridge, 
where houses and stores were built, and " a rapid progress of 
trade and commerce was naturally expected." That vision has 
been made true even beyond the hopes of the bridge-builders. 
We have now business establishments of nearly all kinds. 
Naturally, printing is very prominent. But we make engines 
and pianos ; furniture and boxes ; crackers and collars ; candy 
and carriages ; soap and drugs, and other things more than 
can be named to-night. We have made a great advance. 
When Dr. Holmes wrote his history, there were five meeting- 



114 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

houses in the town, and the college had five buildings. No 
one can readily tell how many there are now. Schools have 
increased in number and efficiency. A new bridge, as hand- 
somely constructed as that of 1793, furnishes another highway 
to the adjoining settlement, and its lights "present a vista 
which has a fine effect." The new city hall stands in its gran- 
deur, lifting its tower above colleges, library, hospital, facto- 
ries, schools, and houses ; and with just and equal laws, with 
finnness and fidelity in their enforcement, guards the honor 
and promotes the well-being of eighty thousand peojile. 

The advance has been the work of the people. We are a 
city of convenient dimensions. We are not so small that our 
experiments in municipal life have no value, nor are we so 
large that the greatness of our tasks forbids their accomplish- 
ment. It is not difficult for those to whom our public interests 
are intrusted to know the city thoroughly. The names and 
places of streets and squares are easily held in mind. Our 
industries are well defined. The departments of the public 
service can be kept in hand, and the work before them does 
not baffle or confuse. Our problems are serious, but they can 
be solved. We are large enough not to be detained by our 
past, nor affrighted by our future. We have the clumsiness 
of neither the dwarf nor the giant. We have the timidity of 
neither childhood nor old age. 

As we stand, at the middle of our century, there are some 
things to be resolved upon. We should keep our past. The 
history of this ground, the annals of the city, are to be remem- 
bered and taught, so that they may descend from generation to 
generation. The story of Thomas Shejiard and his compeers 
should be familiar. The places of historic interest should be 
plainly marked. 

For the present time we need more compactness, more unity. 
We live apart ; we come and go by the different roads ; we use 
different post-offices. This is convenient and necessary. But 
we need to cultivate, if not to create, an honest city pride ; to 
cherish a belief in the city, a desire for its full enrichment, a 
delight in its entire prosperity through all our wide domain. 
AVhatever promotes this, is for our advantage. If there were 
more interchange of counsel and courtesy between the wards it 
would be more than pleasant. 

This celebration, in which we all have part, should have this 



ALEXANDER McKENZIE. 115 

as one of its best results, — to make us more perfectly, in know- 
ledge and in sympathy, one city. We are not too large for that. 
But we look beyond. There is room for prophecy. The fine 
system of parks will greatly enhance our beauty. The Charles 
River may yet be as attractive as the Avon or the Arno. The 
lands in the west are to be improved with fine streets and 
houses, schools and churches ; and Fresh Pond may be almost 
as charming as the English lakes. 

The form of the city as it is outstretched upon the map is the 
form of a butterfly with outstretched wings. It is to grow and 
to fly abroad, raising its splendid colors into the sunlight. We 
must dare plan great things now that we are more than two hun- 
dred and sixty years old, and fifty years a city. 

The inspiration for our work may be taken from the walls 
above us : Qui autem doeti fueruit fulgebunt. (They that be 
wise shall shine.) AVhere shall we find the pattern for this 
wisdom better than in the teaching of our own Laureate : — 

" When all have done their utmost, surely he 
Hath given the best who gives a character 
Erect and constant, which nor any shock 
Of loosened elements, nor the fearful sea 
Of flowing or of ebbing fates, can stir 
From its deep bases in the living rock 
Of ancient manhood's sweet security." 



REVEREND ALEXANDER McKENZIE, D. D.i 

" And the city lieth foursquare, and the length thereof is as great as the 
breadth. . . . Tlie length and the breadth and the height thereof are equal." 
— Revelation xxi. 16. 

I. This is a week of celebration, and it is proper that the 
churches should have their part. Certainly this church should 
have its part, for it is coeval with the town ; more than that, 
it was the beginning of the town. This church was formed 
almost as soon as the first settlers landed, and it was thence- 
forth the centre of their life. The Puritan design was distinctly- 
religious, and a Puritan church may congratulate itself on the 
fulfillment of the purpose. A Congregational church was here 
in 1633, the eighth in the Massachusetts Colony. After its 
removal to Connecticut, this church was organized in 1G36, 
under Thomas Shepard. John Bridge, whose tablet is in the 
wall yonder, and whose statue is on the common, was in both 
churches. Thomas Shepard's presence hel])ed to draw the col- 
lege here. Tlie church, the town, the college have been in 
unbroken fellowship, and from this, enlarged in the process of 
the years, has come the city. The advance from the small pro- 
portions of the beginning has been steady along all the lines. 
The spirit of the first days has not lost its force. 

II. What has the city done for the church in the fifty years 
which we are now reviewing ? The word " church " is used in a 
large sense, meaning the whole body of those whose religious 
home has been with the First Church. 

1. It has given it a place to stand upon. 

2. It has granted an exemption from taxation, that it might 
use all its means for religious and charital)le ])urposes. 

3. It has furnished good schools for tlie children. 

4. It has promoted business, through which the church has 
been benefited and made strong. 

5. It has sustained inany forms of municipal service. 

6. It has created and protected pleasant homes for the people. 
1 Abstract of a sermon preached at the First Church, May 31. 



ALEXANDER McKENZIE. 117 

7. It has framed and administered good laws. 

8. It has shared its lionor and dignity witli the church. 

III. What has the chui-eh done for the city ? 

1. It has lived here. 

2. It has taught virtue, and civic virtue, patriotism, citizen- 
ship. 

3. It has dispensed large charities for the assistance of the 
needy. 

4. It has given men and women to the service of the city. 

5. It has kept the unseen and eternal realities with the things 
which are seen and temporal. 

That is, the church has been a part of the city and its life, 
enjoying and enlarging the prosjDerity which has surrounded 
and jjervaded it. 

It would he strange indeed if it were otherwise ; if the city 
had not valued the church, or the church had not felt the 
opportunity to fulfill its divine intent. 

IV. The idea of a city is sacred. It is in the Old Testa- 
ment and the New Testament. The Bible insists on personal- 
ity and personal duty, but it presents the kingdom and the city. 
In the book of Revelation we read of the coming city, the ideal 
city, which has so great glory that it is to be the Bride of the 
Lamb, the Son of God. It is to be foursquare, complete, sta- 
ble, beautiful. The idea of a city includes homes, business of 
many kinds, schools and libraries, churches and charities, gov- 
ernment and officers. All these the city regards, and with the 
same interest the church regards them. They are essential to 
the well-being of the church, which must honor and sustain 
them by all the means in its power. To this idea of city and 
church we owe our gladness to-day. 

V. Are we only to celebrate ? Is this a time for memory 
alone? We have the past by keeping it and perfecting it. 
To be glad is good, but joy is generous. Even in our praises 
we are borne forward to new achievements. Only thus are we 
worthy of those who were before us. What memorial of this 
time shall we erect ? A column ? An arch ? A building ? 
What shall it be ? Memorials are good, but useful memo- 
rials are best and most in keeping with our history. Something 
for the benefit of the people may well rise to mark the time we 
are passing through. We have illustrious precedent. The 
new Czar of Russia has made his accession memorable by lifting 



118 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

off oppress! v^e taxes, setting free prisoners of state, recalling 
men from Siberia. In many a town, in many a home to which 
husband, father, son has been restored, this coronation will be 
remembered with thanksgiving. In the palace more easy will 
lie the head which wears the crown. What can we do here ? 
We can certainly enlarge our charities. They are all poor. 
It would be a notable event if by our common gifts or by public 
gifts they were strengthened for their work. How fine it would 
be if our hospital, our orphans' home, our home for the aged, 
and other houses of mercy, were liberally enlarged, and on the 
wall the stranger could read, " Endowed in the fiftieth year of 
the city " ! The very words would be a memorial and an inspi- 
ration. 

VI. We could go further even and restore and perfect the 
New England ideas which are in the base and in the walls of 
our prosperity : The idea of God, whose law is supreme over 
men and states ; of the Bible, the true light of men through 
the world, in all duty and in all comfort, and the light to all 
the worlds that are beyond ; of the Sabbath, a day of rest and 
of worship, a time for the freshening and invigorating of our 
spiritual nature ; the idea of tlie church, ])rimeval in our New 
England life, and of the meeting-house, the one meeting-place, 
hallowed and enjoyed by all the households. How worthily the 
return to the ways of the fathers would mark this time of re- 
joicing ! 

VII. Let us build here the city of the New Testament. We 
have a good foundation for it. Those who made the beginning 
had the vision of " the city of the living God." They provided 
that here Wisdom should cry aloud in the streets, and utter her 
voice in the broad places and in the chief place of concourse. 
They wished to fulfill upon the earth the song of the Psalmist : 
" There is a river the streams whereof make glad the city of 
God. . . . God is in the midst of her : she shall not be moved ; 
God shall help her, and that right earl3^" If the streets of 
their city were not laid with gold, they were to be trodden by 
the feet of good men walking in prosjierity and uprightness. 
The city was to be on a hill, so that it could not be hid. They 
were fond of the line in the eighty-seventh Psalm : " Glorious 
things are spoken of thee, O city of God." If it was not to be 
a " continuing city," never to be moved, their city was to last 
while the world lasted, and its citizens were to have the power 



ALEXANDER McKENZIE. 119 

of an endless life. Are we not able to rise toward their thought 
and to make our rejoicing like the early strains of a grand 
prophecy ? So shall our city be foursquare. Government, 
knowledge, enterprise, religion shall flourish. The city shall 
then be strong and beautiful indeed. Through its gates we 
and our children shall move on to a city prepared for us, — a 
city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, 
in that country which is our own. 



REVEREND GEORGE ALCOTT PHINNEY.i 

It is no ordinary privilege which I have at this hour in the 
midst of the festivity of our fiftieth anniversary as a city to 
speak to you a fitting word. You have gathered here to cele- 
brate by the massing of your splendid forces of young life, by 
the instrumental music accompanied by artistic song and 
declamation, the achievement which our parents have won fcr 
us in the creation of this city. It is an extraordinary city. It 
is a famous city. You are honored with being educated in one 
of the most renowned cities of the world. If you were among 
the Highlands of Scotland or standing on the banks of the 
Ganges it would not be difficult for you to find some one who 
knew of our civic fame, and who thought you ought to be justly 
proud over what has been accomplished within our borders. 
There is, then, to-day, this which ought to awaken your grati- 
tude. You have been born under very favorable conditions of 
location, education, administration. The city rests quietly by 
the banks of the Charles, within a whisjjer of our capitol. I 
have lived in Boston, was educated in all her grades of schools, 
and I venerate that city as I do no other ; nevertheless, our 
Cambridge has a fine independence of her own, — all that 
necessarily enters in to make her a great and useful city is 
found here. Her politicians are conscientious and able ; her 
industries are famed ; her schools are attractions to all parts 
of the country. Let us rejoice to-day, children, over our her- 
itage. Let us, as we stand around the altars of this great 
celebration, resolve to do all we can by being good sons and 
daughters in our homes, good pupils in our schools, good men 
and women as we grow up, to make Cambridge, when she wears 
the honor of comiufj to her centennial iubilee, a CTcater factor 
in the civilization of the twentieth century. 

' Address delivered to the pupils of the Willard Primary School, at the 
Grace Methodist Episcopal Church, June 2. 



REVEREND GEORGE ALCOTT PHINNEY.i 

" And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from 
God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." — Reve- 
lation xxi. 2. 

It has been suggested by the civil authorities of this city that 
we observe our semi-centennial by appropriate services in our 
various churches on this Sabbath. Following that suggestion 
arrangements have been made for an interesting meeting this 
evening to be addressed by several speakers of prominence and 
ability. I propose, this morning, not to dwell upon any his- 
torical facts of our civic history, but to develop a general theme 
suggested by the occasion ; feeling that my brief sojourn among 
you would hardly warrant my preparing an historical discourse. 

There is not the slightest doubt that if we could get the cities 
right we could easily get the world right. It is the city which 
determines the type and extent of the world's civilization. We 
are not one bit better, we are no farther jsrogressed, we are no 
nearer millennial ideals, than our cities are. 

The ancient city was everything to the ancient. His life 
centred in the city. His city was his religion, for there lived 
the gods he venerated. Our patriotism, which is the soul's pas- 
sion for its native land, was unknown to them save as it found 
cause for its excitement in the dangers and deliverances which 
came to ancient Athens, Corinth, Syracuse, and Rome, cen- 
turies before Christ. The legendai'y origin of these famous 
strongholds gave a kind of mystic charm to them which stimu- 
lated ancient reverence. To trace the founding of some of the 
old municipalities is like trying to find the source of the great 
lake in the heart of darkest Africa, — its origin is so far remote 
from what would seem real and practical life that it would be 
easy to relate it to far-off celestial mists. The ancient city was 
either founded by a god or demigod, or there was some legend 
about its origin kept in the secrecy of a few people. There is 
greater simplicity in our origins. The stainless fingers of un- 

' Sermon preached at the Grace Methodist Episcopal Church, May 31. 



122 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

known gods had no part in our Inception. Our genealogy runs 
back with unquestioned accuracy. We know the names of 
those w4io built the first log house, who digged the first well, 
who worshiped in the first rude church. Our history is real. 

In the ancient city the man was a citizen to all the worship 
and privileges within her walls, liarely could he change his 
city. Banishment was a horrible misfortune attended with all 
the regretfulness and disgrace of modern hanging. Wealth in 
those days, in the light of the intelligence of the times, made 
commendable use of its money in erecting monuments to the 
gods, rearing temples of exquisite architecture and decorative 
art, setting around on the street corners costly statues ; poems 
were recited, processions formed, hymns sung, sacrifices offered 
in shadows of the colonnades, or in the sunlight of her genial 
skies. Has the world ever listened to eloquence surpassing in 
beauty and effect that which came generation after generation 
from her rostrum or her bema on these great festival occasions 
in honor of the city ? It would be well for us, if we could raise 
the standard of our intellectual and civic life in this respect. 
On those occasions they paid tributes to imaginary founders, 
recited the deeds of their illustrious citizens, pledged continued 
fealty to the patron god or goddess. 

Oh, for the return of the democratic equalities of the palmiest 
days of the old Greek cities, when a citizen had a right to pro- 
pose any law or amendment he chose to present, relying only 
for its success and enforcement upon his artless and direct per- 
suasion of the citizens present in the public places. " Those 
who stood in the forum and listened to Pericles and to Demos- 
thenes, to Scipio and to Cicero, took home more material for 
thought and a higher standard of jiublic debate," says Freder- 
ick Harrison, " than what we usually carry away with us from 
a crowded town's meeting." 

As contrasted with the ancient city we find our cities are 
cumbersomely too large. The greatest cities of the ancient 
world, Rome, Syracuse, or Alexandria, were not so large but 
that in the longer hours of a summer's afternoon you could cir- 
cumvent their walls. Our modern city has become bulky and 
unwieldy. It was the wisdom of De Tocqueville that our cities 
were too large. " I look," said he, " upon the size of certain 
American cities, and especially upon the nature of their popu- 
lation, as a real danger which threatens the security of the 



GEORGE A. PHINNEY. 123 

democratic republics of the New World." There has been a 
rivalry between two or three of our largest cities in our own 
nation over the final census. We want to get big cities. It is 
the ambition to herd together as many millions as possible, but 
the fact is that the massing of large numbers is not the making 
of a good city. If you have observed it, as I think it is true, 
elaboration or reconstruction in architecture follows on the heel 
of commerce. First our great merchant houses run into dizzy 
heights into the sky, until, if we are to raise lofty monuments 
which shall overtop our highest architecture, we need to build 
them high enough to kiss the evening planets. But we are on 
the eve of a serious renovation in domestic architecture. Peo- 
ple are living in flats. It is not impossible to find churches 
having within a few blocks of them, in our largest cities, whole 
cities within cities, for the numbers of inhabitants within these 
limits have been estimated at many thousand, nearly all of 
whom live in these accumulative homes. And this is to result 
in enormous aggregates in our cities. If " the bulk, ugliness, 
and flabbiness of modern London " is a question of alarm, and 
such hordes of people hinder true civic life, who can tell what 
the future shall reveal? Indeed, a nobler patriotism, keener 
sense of justice, a firmer loyalty to jirinciple and to righteous- 
ness, a better intelligence than the average politicians possess 
must be the endowment of the twentieth century, or the cities 
of the world are doomed. 

In the mediaeval city we find an improvement upon the ancient 
city, though the ancient had some things which made it superior 
to medisevalism. To the ancient the temple was everything. 
Pride in a city's grandeur and glory is not, however, the ideal 
of civic life. To be lounging around in the colonnades, sitting 
in the porticoes, visiting the temples, sporting in the arena, 
splashing in the baths, — these things while they are aids to 
greatness are not the highest achievements of a city's life. 
The mediseval city had much that the ancient city contained 
and a good deal more. I do not mean to say that I think that 
medisevalism was not a long way from the simplicity and devo- 
tion of the primitive church, but it had caught more surely the 
spirit of Christ and his disciples, and was a development along 
the lines of Christian brotherhood, to terminate in which will 
be the culminating glory of our common redemption. The 
mediseval city had its monasteries, nunneries, hospices, colleges. 



124 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

and cathedrals. Here is a great advance upon antiquity. It 
was the mediaival church which put a vahie, unrecognized in 
the heathen world, upon the little children, and to the foster- 
ing care of nuns of that era many a child was taken, and edu- 
cated, which otherwise would have suffered from poverty or 
groped on in fatal ignorance. 

With all the conversations which citizens of Athens held in 
her theatres or in the shades of the jwrches, how Plato had 
taught yesterday in the groves of Academus or what Aristotle 
had said in the Lyceum in Athens, or the relative superiority 
of the two disputants, ^schines and Demosthenes in their ora- 
tions, there was never heard the blessed evangel of God to this 
world that lie had appointed men "to preach good tidings to 
the meek, to bind up the broken-hearted, to appoint unto them 
that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the 
oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of 
heaviness." 

There has never been an age when men had a truer sense of 
relationship to each other than they had in the Middle Ages. 
There was a love of industry, a delight in doing work of art, 
and doing it in the very best way possible. The master and 
his workmen suffered not from the mean and petty feuds, the 
disruptions and confusions, of our modern life. 

Again, we find from remotest time pride and interest in old 
institutions or spots made memorable by noble deeds or historic 
associations, like such places in our own country as Faneuil Hall, 
Bunker Ilill, Longf(>llow's Home, the Whittier Mansion, and 
other memorials in our towns and cities. To every Roman the 
Coliseum, and the Forum, surrounded with its costly temples, 
in which justice was dispensed, was very dear. Around in tlie 
shadows of these noble works of architecture in this famous 
valley were statues of distinguished statesmen and warriors and 
trophies brought at much sacrifice from conquered nations. 

To every Athenian the graceful products of Ionic, Corinthian, 
and Doric architecture were highly cherished. There was the 
Ionic Temple of Diana at Ephesus ; there was the most mem- 
orable Doric structure, the Parthenon, whose colossal gran- 
deur in white marble crowned the reno^vned Acropolis at 
Athens : a piece of human workmansliip, which has been called 
" the glory of Greece and the shame of the rest of the world," 
— these, together with other px'oducts of her accomplished 



GEORGE A. PHINNEY. 125 

sculptors, held in high regard, teach us lessons worthy o£ re- 
membrance for our cities, namely, that to cherish places in 
which are vested historic associations is our solemn duty. 

There is always a city within a city. There is Boston teem- 
ing with its varied commerce, and there is below this surface a 
Boston of rare intellectual significance. There is a Cambridge 
within a Cambridge, rich in intellectual greatness. You may 
go to Paris having two thousand years of continuous history, 
and what a city Paris may be to you ! About her history there 
is a library of 80,000 volumes and 70,000 engravings, — all 
this devoted to one subject, the history of Paris. There is the 
Place de la Concorde, the Dome of the Invalides, the house 
where Corneille lived and died ; in the Kue St. Anne the place 
where the great preacher Bossuet passed away ; in the Rue de 
Rivoli is the house where, in the great massacre, Coligny was 
murdered ; there can be found the tomb of one of the greatest 
of modern philosophers, Rene Descartes. There are memorials 
of Pascal, and scores of others, who are well known in history. 
There are her great cathedrals ; so that Paris, as a city, which 
has more than territory and population, which has more than 
drives and costly palaces, which has more than extensive mer- 
chant houses and railway termini, wears her immortelles un- 
crushed as yet beneath the stampede of scores of centuries, still 
blossoming, here in publicity, thei-e in obscurity, but still exist- 
ent, making, as one has said, Paris " more like paradise than 
any spot on earth." And this is true of Cambridge with her 
classic shades and classic towers. 

But once more I feel that there Is one particular in which 
the modern city may vie with antiquity, and that is in the con- 
secration of her ground to our youth for sport and exercise, 
and to the woi'king people for rest and recreation. The Ro- 
mans surpassed the mediaeval church in their " classical religion 
of cleanliness." There is hardly language powerful enougli to 
describe the filthy condition of individuals and cities of the 
Middle Ages. To be unclean then was to be religious. Gar- 
ments were worn unchanged for successive generations, and 
the more pestiferous and unwholesome these garments were, 
the more corrupt one's phj^sieal condition, from exposure and 
personal neglect, the more it seemed in accord with divine 
sanctity and obedience. But in the ancient times men were 
extremely clean. Much time was even wasted at the public 



I 



126 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

baths. A building adorned tlie city of ancient Home in which 
6000 could indulge in ijrolonged lavations. Rome was prod- 
igal of her time ; but Rome believed in the health of her 
subjects and the personal cleanliness of all. ]\Ir. Gibbon has 
told us that Rome in the beginning of the sixth century enjoyed 
the three blessings of a capital : " order, plenty, and public 
amusement." We undoubtedly agree with him, but feel that 
his definition is incomplete. The development of the youth's 
muscularity and well-rounded physique, the personal cleanliness 
of houses, streets, and people, all these things are the obliga- 
tions of a Christian intelligence and civilization. Every rook- 
ery in the city should speedily be cleaned out. Every defective 
system of drainage should be improved. " Every chinmey should 
consume its own smoke." The " silver Thames " should no 
longer be a reproach. The classic Charles should not be discol- 
ored with the city's refuse. Noxious gases and dangerous refuse 
should be immediately disinfected and consumed. The harm- 
less bosom of the blessed ocean should no longer be the re- 
ceptacle of incessant sewerage. We are just entering, thank 
Heaven, on a system of improved hygienic conditions for our 
city. Again, in a hundred years from now, and a good deal 
less perhaps, there will be two days out of every week turned 
to their rightful uses. Wages will be ]3roperly adjusted, so 
that one day of the week will be consecrated to recreation. 
Here lies the hope of the Christian Sabbath. As long as the 
power of worldliness is so great, as long as the tedium of busi- 
ness is so oppressive, as long as social life is so fast and detract- 
ing from the vitality of the nation, one day in the week must 
be given to rest and recreation, one day must be devoted to re- 
ligious worship. I look for a uniform national holiday once in 
seven, and an uniform Scriptural holy day in which God may 
be served with gladness. 

To revert a little and hasten to the end. The city is not an 
accidental formation. It is a living organism in the great na- 
tional body. We are first of all Americans, citizens of the 
United States, the very best government under the rising and 
setting sun. Our conclusion is that to preserve some of the 
features of the ancient and mediaeval city is incumbent ui)on 
those who are willing to be benefited by a past, however remote 
it may be, if it can in any wise instruct and profit us. But 
there are peculiar exigencies in our cities growing out of our 



GEORGE A. PHINNEY. 127 

common weaknesses, as men, and incidental to our later age. 
Nowhere is discontent so nervous and revengefid. Not far 
from 50,000 people are arrested in the capital of this common- 
wealth each year, and in approximate figures it can be safely 
said, judging from recent police reports, one half of them belong 
in the United States, are citizens here, or sons of naturalized 
parents, and the other half, as shown by my own careful calcu- 
lation, from statistics of 1893, come from thirty-four different 
countries. This mixture of negro and Mongol blood, together 
with our Caucasian forces, makes discontent as common and 
uneventful as the restlessness of maggots vying in commin- 
gled corruption, at the same time ambitious for a better state. 
It is certain that the city has got to have the Gosjjel. 

Nowhere is ignorance more prevalent. The uneducated im- 
migrants lower the average of intelligence, and yet, judging from 
the small proportion of the best literature which is read, there 
is some ground for anxiety with regard to our own offspring lest 
they do not grow to appreciate our best authors. There is an 
increasing demand for sensational literature. The public press 
finds too much room for gossips, fancies, and fabulous distor- 
tion of truth. 

The question might be asked if it comes within the range of 
clerical duty to criticise the extravagance of our cities. Vast 
amounts of wealth wastefully and foolishly expended, for the 
justification of which there is no good reason, while Christian- 
ity in her missions, philanthropy, education, needs all the money 
the subjects of any empire or citizens of any nation can bestow ; 
expensive banquets, personal luxuries, — deprivations of which 
would be a very small test of sacrifice ; wastes of the public 
funds, misappropriations of public money, — of all these things, 
the suffering, the poverty, ignorance, unbelief in society are 
standing and silent condemnations. 

It is within the city that the passions of the human heart 
give most violent expression. A man cannot do business hon- 
estly to-day without some temporary sacrifice. In the long 
pull integrity can laugh at greed, which has been consumed by 
its own intensity. Business unmistakably is a long stride this 
side of Christian virtue. Society ideally is a brotherhood. 
There are no scrambles in a family sensitive to just relation- 
ships. Brotherhood now is only a name. It is the theme for 
the poet, but not a factor in the life of the merchant. Endur- 



128 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

ance ratlier than righteousness is the test of success. But these 
standards are transient. Men who hold to righteous principles 
will win enduring fame. Honesty rings a bell in the ear of 
God whose echo never dies away. 

Then the city is infamous for its lust. Sometimes it is the 
hovel ; sometimes it is the palace whose expensive foundations 
one would think might be turned to uses more in harmony with 
its ornamentation and solidity. The police of our cities are 
often not sterling defenders of civic purity. Our culture is 
often a veneer for the meanest vice. "When aristocracy covers 
its shame with costly fabrics it does not mitigate the sinfulness 
of its sin. Our lives ought to be so white in the city, if we have 
regard for the voice of Sinai and the teaching of Jesus Christ, 
that we would be willing to publish our conduct upon the liouse- 
tojis. 

The politics of the city shoidd not dishonor the exalted func- 
tion of municipal government. The unscrupulous scramble 
among candidates for public office ought to yield to the grave 
recognition of personal virtue. And there is the saloon : never 
an army passed in solid phalanx into battle, with minds resolute 
and steel fixed against all opposition, than is organized, as I am 
speaking, within the compass of many of our cities, among the 
liquor dealers and their advocates. It is the iron ball chained 
to the heel of our municipal progress. 

How can we solve that question ? It is not easy. But it 
will come. Back of legislation there must be an educated and 
sensitive conscience. Law can build fences. Lawlessness will 
jump over those fences. It will risk the penalty, and so our 
social life is in perpetual turmoil. But when a human heart 
has surrendered to the divine idea of love for one's fellows, and 
has a common interest in social redemption, — " not ' God and 
the people,' as the Italian revolution inscribed upon its ban- 
ners, but God in the people, is the power that is overcoming 
the tyrannies and slaveries, the falsehoods and hypocrisies of 
the world," — then there is hope for the city. When Frederick 
Harrison was closing one of his chapters on " The Meaning of 
History," in which work he has become about as religious as 
he ever gets, and in this case he is in accord with God's laws 
as to the secret of an improved social order, he says : " To reach 
ideals we have to reach higher social morality, and enlarged con- 
cejitions of human life, a more humane type of religious duty." 



GEORGE A. PHINNEY. 129 

But in bringing the city to great moral and physical health- 
fulness, it needs a change in the method of the burial of our 
dead. The crematorium, I know, is repugnant to my, as well 
as your, sense of refinement. I would not do away with the 
cemeteries. I would not have any of that sickly sentiment 
rule which would place urns upon the mantelpieces in the home. 
I would preserve the little garden with its green place and 
floral designs in the open season, but I do feel crowding upon 
us in the face of the probable stupendous growth of our cities 
a choice between the burial of " putrescent bodies half dozen 
deep " — and thereby an increase of the mortality of the cities 
— and appropriate consumption of the body after a few days 
of entombment with the privilege of preserving the ashes in 
sarcophagi. 

Last of all, the city must get rid of unbelief and become 
Christian. The hope of the cities of the world is in Christ. 
" Except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in 
vain." The cross is the way in which God has lived among us, 
and it is the only way satisfactory to God for men to live among 
themselves. Surely God will never encourage any contradiction 
of his own example. Our cities can never reach social perfec- 
tion in any other way than by their citizens becoming righteous, 
as the social ideals of Christ demand. The great pressure upon 
us is for genuine philanthropy. Another name for the real 
and hidden truth in the meaning of this word is sociality. 
Religion is right relationships. A man's only business with 
God is to help him to get into Christian business with men. 
The worship of the sanctuary, the ecstasies of religion, are 
worthless for our practical age if they are only the self-absorp- 
tions of mere quietistic faith. Christ said, " For their sakes I 
sanctify myself." That is as it was in Christ's case, so it must 
be with us toward our fellow men, " a friendship beginning and 
ending in self-consecration." 

There is a temple which has not been built by hands, whose 
inner altar is the soul's assurance of its own sovereignty, whose 
inner beauty is but reflected in the glory of a divine induement, 
whose organ of exultant praise is silent till God touches the 
keys of our finer sensibilities, whose exalted spire is its supre- 
macies of living faith piercing the skies, worth more to the world 
than Westminster Abbey or Notre Dame ; and the more amid 
the desolation of the city's selfishness we can dedicate such a 



130 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

temple to the unseen Lord, to surpass the boasted glory of the 
" high-raised battlement," costly architecture, courageous sol- 
diers, vast personal wealth, — the more we bring the New Jeru- 
salem down f I'om God out of heaven, — the more, that is, that 
her cleanliness is the real whiteness of our cities, — the more we 
make her heavenly-mindedness the temper of our irreligious 
age, the more it will be true that the municipalities of this world 
shall have become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ. 



HONOKABLE JOSIAH QUINCY,i 

MAYOR OF BOSTON. 

I FEEL that you have placed a good deal upon me in asking 
me to respond not only for our capital city, but also for the 
other municipalities of the commonwealth. While the other 
cities of the state may be classed as the sisters of Cambridge, 
Boston may be more favorably classed as the mother of j^our 
municipality. In spite of the fact that you long since emanci- 
pated yourself from the leading strings of Mother Boston, the 
cities of Cambridge and Boston are to all intents and purposes 
united. 

The city of Boston occupies an interesting position with re- 
spect to the galaxy of cities and towns which lie around her, 
twenty-eight being included in that area that has become 
known as Greater Boston. By uniting them all, we might 
become one great municipality of 1,000,000 people instead of a 
smaller city of 500,000. But instead of that, we enjoy this 
peculiar relation which centres the business life of these com- 
munities in Boston, and which leaves the cities and towns about 
us independent, only united to Boston in the common concerns 
that are necessary to the business life of the metropolis. 

Boston looks upon Cambridge and our other cities with no 
jealous feelings. We are quite content that Cambridge should 
be an independent municipality, working out for itself its own 
problems of municipal government. The conditions of muni- 
cipal government in a city like Cambridge, differing so much 
in size and character from a city like Boston, render the prob- 
lem quite different for you than it is for us. The more I 
have to study the problem, however, the more I think I can 
learn something from the other cities of the state, and yet, the 
problem, in each case, must remain a local question. It is 
possible for you to manage your affairs in an entirely satis- 
factory manner by methods and machinery that would be very 
much out of place and impracticable for Boston. 

^ Speech delivered at the banquet in Union Hall, June 3. 



132 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

I may congratulate the citizens of Cambridge on the success 
with which they work out their problems. We look with in- 
terest on your experience and on your methods. It is espe- 
cially interesting that this experience has shown that the city 
government of Cambridge demands the cooperation of the 
citizens of Cambridge, which is also the case of any other city. 
I am glad to observe that the doctrine seems to obtain in Cam- 
bridge to continue in office those who are deserving, and this 
seems to me a great point in your favor. The doctrine of rota- 
tion in office is naturally not popular with those in office. I 
think your doctrine ought to obtain in Boston. 

Governor Wolcott has spoken feelingly of the relations be- 
tween Cambridge and Harvard College. The impress that 
Harvard is making on the municipal government of our cities 
is noticeable. In the first few weeks in which I held my pres- 
ent office, I selected, entiiely by chance, three men, all from 
the Harvard class of '83, for three important offices. When I 
look outside the commonwealth, I see the same thing. In 
New York, I see a classmate of mine, Theodore Roosevelt, as 
the chairman of the Board of Police Commissioners. The city 
of Cambridge also seems to appreciate the fact of the aptitude 
of Harvard men in city government, as the presence of your 
mayor here illustrates. 

I suppose it is trite to remark that Cambridge is indebted to 
Boston in some degree. You are indebted to Boston in that 
you are able to enforce your no-license law. It is only a mat- 
ter of a few minutes or a few cents for your citizens to cross 
over one of the bridges and enjoy all the benefits of license. 

In conclusion, I wish to extend to the city of Cambridge the 
heartiest congratulations at the condition of the city at the 
close of the first half-century of its existence as a municipality, 
and the best wishes that her growth may be marked by all 
the enviable associations and conditions that have distinguished 
her past. I cannot wish more than that you may continue 
along the lines of municipal life and prosperity, that the mutual 
good will now existing between our cities may continue so that 
it may again be remarked at your centennial celebration fifty 
years hence. 



EEVEREND CHARLES FRANCIS RICE, D. D.i 

" I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city iu Cilicia, a citizen of no 
mean city." — Acts xxi. 39. 

Though Tarsvis is chiefly famous as the birthplace and early 
home of the apostle, yet enough is known of its character and 
standins: to show that Paul's tribute was well founded. It was 
a commercial centre, and renowned as a place of education. 

Paul was proud of his Jewish race, esteemed higlily his Ro- 
man citizenship, but felt also an honest pride in his native city. 

The words of the text may well suggest the theme of civic 
patriotism — love and devotion, not to country or state alone, 
but to the city as well. 

In this semi-centennial year, we have great reason, as citizens 
of Cambridge, to say with thankfulness and j)ride, " I am a 
citizen of no mean city." 

As the reasons for this thankfulness and pride may be men- 
tioned : — 

1. The material growth and prosperity of our city. 

2. The men whom Cambridge has numbered among her citi- 
zens and the intellectual life of the city. 

3. The high character of her municipal government and ser- 
vice. 

4. The triumph over the saloon power. 

5. The practical union in moral reform of men of all sects 
and creeds. 

6. The leadership and inspiration which by her example she 
affords to other cities in the conflict with corruption and mis- 
rule. 

The duties of the hour are : — 

1. Devout thankfulness to God for the past and present of 
our city. 

2. Recognition of personal responsibility for her future honor 
and welfare. 

1 Abstract of a sermon preached at the Epworth Methodist Episcopal 
Church, May 31. 



134 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

This personal responsibility includes : — 

1. The realization in our own lives of the highest possible 
type of manhood and womanhood. 

2. Unceasing vigilance and unselfish devotion to the weKare 
of the city. 

May our loved city go onward toward her centennial of mu- 
nicipal life, gaining ever new strength and beauty, rising ever 
to higher and nobler planes of life and activity, approximating 
more and more closely to that holy city which John saw in 
beatific vision ! May she ever be a joy and pride to her citi- 
zens, a model and an inspiration to all the cities of the land ! 



HONORABLE CHARLES HICKS SAUNDERS.i 

It always gives me pleasure to meet the members of the 
Washington School, and especially on this occasion, when we 
are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the organization of 
our city government. This school is the oldest in our city, 
dating from the very earliest settlement of the town. It is older 
than Harvard College, and is honored by the name of the illus- 
trious Washington. It is the rightful successor of the " faire 
Grammar Schoole," mentioned by Edward Johnson in his " New 
England Fruits," published in 1643, in which he writes, " By 
the side of the College is a faire Grammar Schoole for the 
training of young scholars, and fitting them for academical 
learning." 

Its first teacher was Elijah Corlet, a famous instructor in his 
time, who taught here fifty years. He is described by Cotton 
Mather as " that memorable schoolmaster in Cambridge, from 
whose education our college and country have received so many 
of their most worthy men." He died in February, 1686-87, 
aged seventy-eight years. His monument may still be seen in 
the old burial-ground on Garden Street. 

This school was probably kept at first in a private house, 
which stood on land of President Dunster on the westerly side 
of Holyoke Street, the young town not being able at that time 
to build a schoolhouse. The first schoolhouse mentioned was 
built by President Dunster and Edward Goffe, about 1647. It 
was of stone, and stood on the same site on Holyoke Street. 
Here the school remained until 1769, when it was removed to 
Garden Street, just west of Appian Way. In 1852, it was re- 
moved to its present location on Brattle Street. The city 
council in 1880 marked the site on Holyoke Street by a stone 
tablet. 

The contract for the first house specified that it should be 
paid for in wheat, barley, and corn, at the market price. Some 

^ Abstract of an address delivered to the pupils of the Washington Gram- 
mar School, June 2. 



136 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

of Master Corlet's pupils were Indians. In 1G59, it was said 
there were " five Indian youthes at Cambridge in the Latin 
Schoole, whose diligence and proficiency in their studies doth 
much encourage us." One of these Indians was graduated from 
Harvard College in 1665. The school was at first called a 
grammar school. Soon afterwards it was called the Latin 
grammar school. This title was retained until 1845, when it 
was changed to the Washington Grammar School. It has had 
sixty-nine masters during these years. 

In 1657, Governor Edward Hopkins, of Connecticut, died, 
leaving the sum of five hundred pounds of his estate iti Eng- 
land to the college and the grammar school in Cambridge. 
Three fourths of the income, according to the will of the donor, 
was for the college, and one fourth for the master of the gram- 
mar school, in consideration of his instructing in academical 
learning not less than five boys, to be nominated by the Presi- 
dent and Fellows of Harvard College, and the minister of Cam- 
bridge for the time being. The speaker w^as one of those 
scholars, and well remembers being examined, in Divinity Hall, 
by President Quincy and Dr. Abiel Holmes of the First 
Church. This was the origin of the fund for the Hopkins 
classical scholars. 

In those early years the town was surrounded by a palisade, 
inclosing a thousand acres, for the protection of the settlers 
from the wolves and the Indians. In 1708, the first courthouse 
was built in Harvard Square, on the westerly side near the 
present Lyceum Hall. It is interesting to know that the ori- 
ginal vane placed on this building may now be seen in the me- 
morial room of the new public library. At this period the 
town had its meeting-house on the easterly side of the square, 
within the college yard. On the westerly side, as I have stated, 
stood the courthouse, and about it the whipping-post, the stocks, 
and the pillory. 

Such was tlie small beginning of the present Cambridge. 
The town of 1636, containing less than one hundred persons, 
has now become a city of eighty-four thousand inhabitants, and 
has within its borders the largest and best endowed university 
in the country. Its schools are unsurpassed, and its city hall, 
English High School, and Manual Training School are splendid 
specimens of its development. 

Every member of this school should be proud of the name of 



CHARLES H. SA UNDERS. 137 

Washington, the grandest character America has ever pro- 
duced. Gladstone says, " Washington was the purest figure in 
history." Our own Everett has said, " Of all men who have 
ever lived he was the greatest of good men, and the best of 
great men." Bancroft has written, " But for Washington the 
country could not have achieved its independence." 

The future citizens of the republic are now being educated in 
our public schools, and one of the most important lessons to be 
learned is loyalty to the government and the flag. I trust this 
brief sketch of this town and school will help you to realize the 
great changes that have taken place, and the splendid oppor- 
tunities that are now offered you. May your hearts be inspired 
with a greater love for this country and its free institutions, 
which, we trust, through you are to be transmitted to genera- 
tions to come. 



REVEREND ISAIAH WITMER SNEATH, Ph.D.i 

"Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: 
except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." — 
Psalms exxvii. 1. 

The city of Cambridge is about to celebrate its fiftieth anni- 
versary as a city with great eclat. It is well that we tarry long 
enough in the midst of these glorious festivities and rejoicings 
to consider the city's debt to Christianity. What was the 
" rock whence tliis city was hewn and the hole of the pit whence 
she was digged ? " As God through the prophet pointed Israel 
to Abraham and Sarah as their parents and to Himself as their 
founder and keeper, so to-day He points Cambridge to the Pil- 
grims and Puritans as their parents and to Himself as their 
founder and keeper. Through God and Christianity Cambridge 
has come to her present glory, and she commits a great sin 
against high heaven if in the mixlst of her gloryings of men she 
fails to give due recognition to Almighty God. The town of 
Cambridge was established in 1G30, or 2GG years ago, and the 
record of this town has always been one of the best. To my 
mind this is due to the Christian influences which have ever 
moulded the lives of its citizens and the institutions which they 
have established. The people who settled in Cambridge were 
a Christian people, so that we are ready to say : — 

1. That Cambridge owes its existence to Christianity. 

" Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that 
build it." It can be clearly shown that the hand of God was 
manifest in the besinnino-s of Cambrida-e. It was in the inter- 
ests of a freedom to worship God that tlie Puritans came to 
this country, and this thought was uppermost in tlu'ir minds. 
It could not be otherwise than that God should prosjier them 
in their undertakings. This fact receives supj^ort in the godly 
men who were the first pastors of the church in Cambridge. 
For twenty-five years there was but one church in Cambridge. 
^ Sermon preached at the Wood Memorial Church, ^Liy 31. 



ISAIAH W. SNEATH. 139 

In 1761 the Episcopal church on Garden Street was organized. 
And then there were no other churches in this city until 1817. 
The religious interest of the early settlers of Cambridge, there- 
fore, centres in the First Church. It had most godly pastors in 
Rev. Thomas Shepard, Rev. Jonathan Mitchell, and their suc- 
cessors. In the life of Rev. Jonathan Mitchell, written by 
Cotton Mather in 1697, his father, Increase Mather, wrote the 
introduction, and in this introduction says : " There have been 
few churches in the world so lifted up to heaven in respect of a 
succession of supereminent ministers of the gospel as the 
church in Cambridge has been. Hooker, Shepard, Mitchell, 
Oakes (all of them yours), were great lights. They were men 
of piety and they trained their people in pious ways." It may 
be said that in its beginnings our city was one of the cities of 
God. Mr. Mitchell, speaking of his four years in Harvard 
College, when he sat under Mr. Shepard's ministry, says : 
" Unless it had been four years living in heaven, I know not 
how I could have more cause to bless God with wonder than 
for those four years." Not only were the fathers of Cambridge 
interested in their own spiritual welfare, but also in that of 
others, and this is ever a source of blessing to any community. 
They were early interested in giving the gospel to the Indians. 
Says Dr. McKenzie : " Let it be remembered to the honor of 
our fathers that the first Protestant mission to the heathen in 
modern times began in Cambridge, the first Protestant sermon 
in a heathen tongue was preached here, the first translation of 
a Bible into a heathen tongue was printed here, the first Prot- 
estant tract in a heathen language was written and printed 
here." There are also many single facts which indicate the 
Christian character which predominated the early history of 
Cambridge. For example, in the revolutionary contest. Presi- 
dent Langdon of Harvard College, from the doorstep of the 
old Holmes house, offered prayer for the soldiers as they went 
forth to the struggle of Bunker Hill. When General Wash- 
ington assumed command of the American army under the old 
elm tree, one of the first orders he gave was as follows : " The 
general most earnestly requires and expects a due observance 
of those articles of war, established for the government of the 
army, which forbid profane cursing, swearing, and drunkenness, 
and in like manner he requires of all officers and soldiers not 
engaged on actual duty a punctual attendance on divine service, 



140 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

to implore the blessings of heaven npon the means used for our 
safety and defense." AVhen Governor Trumbell, a man with 
the pious and patriotic zeal of a Scotch Covenanter, wrote to 
Washington a letter assuring him of the help and prayers of 
the people, Washington replied : " As the cause of our common 
country calls us both to an active and dangerous duty, I trust 
that Divine Providence, which wisely orders the affairs of men, 
will enable us to discharge it with fidelity and success." Mrs. 
John Adams wrote to her husband : " I was struck with General 
Washington. You had prepared me to entertain a favorable 
opinion of him, but I thought the half was not told me. Dig- 
nity with ease and complacency, the gentleman and soldier, 
look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and 
feature of his face. Those lines of Drydeu instantly occurred 
to me : ' Mark his majestic fabric ; he 's a temple sacred by 
birth, and built by hands divine ; his soul 's the deity that lodges 
there, nor is the pile unworthy of the god.' " To me this 
morning the noblest fact in General Washington's life is this, 
that he was a Christian, and that in our beloved city he by his 
orders recognized Christian principles and living. Let it never 
be forgotten, then, that to Christianity Cambridge owes its 
existence and development. 

2. Cambridge owes its educational advantages to Christianity. 

Harvard College and our public school system are the direct 
product of Christianity. In a tract published in London in 
1G43, entitled " New England's First Fruits," were the follow^- 
ing words : " After God had carried us safe to New England 
and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our 
livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and set- 
tled the civil government, one of the next things we longed for 
and looked after was to advance learning and to perpetuate it 
to posterity, dreading to have an illiterate ministry to the 
churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust. 
And as we were thinking and consulting how to effect this great 
work it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. Harvard 
(a godly gentleman, and a lover of learning, there living 
amongst us) to give the one half of his estate (it being in all 
about 1,700 pounds) toward the erection of a college, and all 
his library ; after him another gave 300 pounds ; others after 
them cast in moi*e, and the public hand of the state added the 
rest ; the college was by common consent appointed to be at 



ISAIAH W. SNEATH. 141 

Cambridge (a place very pleasant and accommodate) and is 
called (according to the name of the first founder) Harvard 
College." It is very evident from this statement that Harvard 
College was founded by Christianity. The same tract says, 
" And by the side of the college, a faire grammar schoole for 
the training up of younger scholars and fitting of them for 
academical learning that still as they are judged ripe they may 
be received into the college of this school." From this begin- 
ning developed the public schools of this city, of whitih we are 
so justly proud. Cotton Mather wrote concerning the first 
master, Mr. Elijah Corlet, " that memorable old school master 
in Cambridge from whose education our college and country 
have received so many of its worthy men that it is worthy to 
have his name celebrated in our church history." He was a 
Cliristian man and shaped our school system in a Christian 
way. Many interesting and important facts might be men- 
tioned to-day concerning our public schools if we had time ; but 
this I do want to impress upon your mind, that the educational 
privileges enjoyed by the sons and daughters of Cambridge 
are the direct outgrowth of the Christian religion. 

3. In the third place, the men of thought which have given 
Cambridge a name throughout the world were Christian men. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose home is the attraction 
to every visitor that comes to Cambridge, whose verses have 
cheered and blessed unnumbered lives, was a Christian man. 
James Russell Lowell, who was rocked in the cradle in Elm- 
wood to Christian hymns, and who in after years made himself 
famous by his Biglow Papers and otherwise, was a Christian. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, who went to school in the " jDort " and 
who wrote his best in this city, was a Christian man. The 
names of these three men are known to the uttermost parts of 
the earth. When a few years ago I went into Westminster 
Abbey, that magnificent tem]:)le of the Church of England, and 
saw the bust of Longfellow, honored by so conspicuous a place, 
and the tablet to the memory of James Russell Lowell, I felt 
anew the power of Christian influence in our own city. It is 
also well to remember the influence of such Christian ministers, 
whose names have a national reputation, as Nathaniel Appleton, 
Nehemiah Adams, Andrew P. Peabody, Lucius R. Paige, Alex- 
ander McKenzie, and the first mayor of Cambridge, Rev. and 
Hon. James D. Green. We dare not forget also Anne Brad- 



142 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

street, who wrote in lier home in Harvard Square the first poem 
that was written in this new world, and Margaret Fuller, the 
" Corinne " of America. She was born in Cherry Street at the 
corner of Eaton Street. You will note the old-fashioned house 
with the large elm trees in front of it and the garden behind it. 
Mr. Fuller planted those trees at about the time Margaret was 
born, which was in the year 1810. These and other names of 
Christian men and women, known in two continents, remind us 
very forcibly of the debt of Cambridge to a Christian gospel. 

4. In the fourth place, it is a fact worth emi)hasiziug, that all 
the })ublic buildings of which Cambridge is justly proud owe 
their origin to Christian influences. 

It is one of the natural tendencies of Christianity to manifest 
itself in institutions and buildings which are not only ornamen- 
tal but also eminently useful. As a result of this tendency, 
we have in Cambridge to-day a city hall valued at more than 
1250,000, a manual training school valued at $100,000, a 
public library valued at 8100,000, and land valued at 170,000, 
upon which the manual training school and public library 
were placed, and also by the city an English High School build- 
ing, costing #200,000. Now all these, with the exception of the 
High School were the gifts of one Christian man, ]Mr. Frederick 
H. Rindge. The Cambridge water works, of which our city 
is so justly i)roud, owe their high character to two, j-ea we 
might say, three Christian men, Chester W. Kingsley, Hiram 
Nevons, and John L. Harrington. It is on record in the city 
hall that the latter man saitl shortly before his death that he 
wanted to so do his work as to receive the approval of the citi- 
zens of Cambridge. It may be well said that Christian charac- 
ter went into this great municipal enterprise. I need not tell 
you that the Cambi-idge Hospital, the Avon Place Home, The 
Aged Ladies' Home, the Young Men's Christian Association 
building, are all direct results of Christianity ; and in so far as 
they are helpful to the peace and prosperity of Cambridge, in 
so far is she indebted to the gospel of Christ. It is a well- 
known fact that heathen religions knew nothing of philan- 
thropic institutions for the benefit of the sick, the poor, the 
orphan, and the aged. Aside from these which I have already 
mentioned in connection with our city and the churches which 
directly represent Christianity, there are the numerous chari- 
table organizations of our city, all doing a good work and all 



ISAIAH W. SNEATH. 143 

owing their origin and inspiration to Christian influences. 
Thus the city itself, its educational and j^hilanthropic work, its 
public buildings and its eminent men, must acknowledge their 
origin and development to the all-powerful influence of the gos- 
pel of Jesus. And for Cambridge to forget this fact would be 
an act of ingratitude too base to mention. 

5. In the fifth place there are lines of action which, if prop- 
erly pursued, ever tend to build up a city in righteousness and 
true prosperity. Certain of these lines, earnestly advocated 
and carried out in Cambridge, have given rise to what is known 
as the Cambridge Idea. Two of the cardinal features of the 
Cambridge Idea are a no-license policy and a non-partisan 
form of government. And I think I can stand here to-day 
and assert without fear of successful contradiction that both 
of these owe their origin and development to Christian influ- 
ence. The contrast in this particular matter is not between 
Christians and heathen or agnostics ; but between Christian 
men and women who believe in the principles of Jesus Christ 
and his gospel, and desire their application to our municipal 
affairs, and those who, though Christian in name, are selfish 
and wicked in heart and in life. I say the Cambridge Idea is 
the result of the former. The wicked, unscrupulous men of 
our city would overthrow the Cambridge Idea to-morrow. 
There may be some, and doubtless are, who do not believe in 
the present policy, but who are good men nevertheless ; but the 
majority are virtually anti-Christian in their life, their desires, 
and their actions. Through the earnest endeavors of Christian 
churches, Christian ministers and laymen, and Christian organi- 
zations of various kinds, the policy of no-license and a non-par- 
tisan form of government, with all their beneficial results, are 
made possible within our borders, and it can easily be proven 
that the results have been beneficent. The first of May began 
the tenth year of these blessed conditions. Thousands of lives 
have been saved a drunkard's end ; thousands of families will 
be saved the terrible experiences of a drunkard's home ; thou- 
sands of dollars have been placed in savings banks ; thousands 
of children have happier hearts and happier lives ; and thou- 
sands of blessings have been experienced which would never 
have been tasted, and all because Christian principles were 
applied in a Christian way by a Christian people. Such, then, 
are some of the evidences of what Christianity has done for 



144 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

Cambridge. Many cities will prove by their wicked and 
wretched conditions that the Psalmist's words are true : " Ex- 
cept the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it : 
excejjt the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in 
vain." Cambridge proves the truthfulness of the assertion by 
its existence, its possessions, and the line of action it pursues 
with reference to its best government and the peace and wel- 
fare of its citizens. 

What of the years to come ? 

The future blessedness and prosperity of Cambridge is 
assured only in so far as she shall be governed by the same 
Lord that has guided her in the past, only in so far as she 
remains steadfast ujjon the sayings of Jesus Christ and doing 
them. It does seem to me that to-day in every church of our 
city, and from every Christian heart, there should arise expres- 
sions of gratitude to God, who hath builded and kej)t this city. 
lie is worthy of all the praise and of all the glory. There is 
nothing so base as ingratitude, and for people to forget the God 
who has blessed them is to make that people unworthy of any 
further blessinsfs. God has his ric^hts and will have them 
acknowledged ; and it is just as true of municipalities as well as 
of individuals, that if they forget their God, they shall suffer. 
It is a good time for Cambridge to sing, " Praise God from 
whom all blessings flow." 

It is also well to remember that our city, its inhabitants, its 
social relations, and its government are not ideally Christian. 
The wheat and the tares still grow up together, and the tares 
make themselves about as conspicuous as the wheat. When 
General Washington came to Cambridge he found profanity 
and drunkenness, and we find it to-day. Cities cannot live upon 
past records. A fine historic past is no positive guarantee of a 
glorious future. It is only as we depend upon our fathers' 
God, and strive more earnestly to establish righteous laws, 
and have them enforced by righteous men, that true progress in 
the direction of perfection is assured. Another fifty years will 
make vast changes in this city. Only as there is a persistent 
endeavor on the part of good and true men to elect Christian 
men of tried character to offices of trust ; only as good men are 
willing to be elected, and other good men are willing to elect 
them : only as evil-doing is frowned upon in high places as well 
as in low, and the evil-doer arrested and severely punished ; 



ISAIAH W. SNEATH. 145 

only as the Christian Church is sustained, and men and women 
become Christian in fact and meet their obligations to God ; 
and only as Christian men have a keen conscience and are gov- 
erned by it regardless of the consequences, shall we see our city 
prospering with a true prosperity and gaining for it a nobler 
record than it has ever yet had. In fact, " except the Lord 
build the house, they labour in vain that build it : except the 
Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." God 
grant that the time may come when the question asked concern- 
ing Jerusalem in sarcasm may be asked in sincerity concerning 
Cambridge, " Is this the city that men call the perfection of 
beauty, the joy of the whole earth? " 



EEVEREND ROBERT WALKER.^ 

" Through God we will do great acts." — Psalms ix. 12. 

Though our country has passed through great wars, yet she 
need not bhish when the historian gives to the workl their 
causes. The results of these may be regarded as sacred achieve- 
ments, accomplished by Americans in behalf of justice and 
freedom. Well may we be proud of our own cit}'^ in the days 
when war clouds overshadowed our laud. What citizen can 
stand beneath the Washington Elm, which marks the first 
camping ground of the American Revolution, or read the his- 
torical accounts of our former townsmen, standing shoulder to 
shoulder along this eastern coast to check the advance of tyr- 
anny and oppression, without being conscious of the prominence 
our city has attained throughout the world, due largely to their 
loyalty and patriotism, when this nation was in its infancy? 
All praise and honor to those who offered their lives on the 
altar of freedom ! They whose blood first cemented together 
the thirteen original colonies have gone to their long rest ; but 
their deeds remain indelibly written upon our nation's history, 
and in the memory of every American citizen who realizes the 
value of the principles for which they fought and died. Tlirough 
God they did great acts, for He is always with men, be they 
ministers or laymen, who, by word or deed, seek to establish 
any principle in human life that is to benefit the race. He is 
no less with the soldier on the battlefield defending his country's 
honor and life with sword and gun, than with the minister 
preaching in his pulpit the gospel of peace and brotherly love. 

But this is not all. Yesterday our flag floated at half-mast, 
in memory of the brave who perished to save the Union those 
former patriots founded. Theirs was a war cruel and sad, yet 
glorious in its purpose and achievements in that it aimed to 
keep our nation one and inseparable, and to snap asunder the 
chain that bound the dark brother to the white man's will. 
' Sermon preached at the Church of the Ascension, May 31. 



ROBERT WALKER. 147 

Well may we also be i^roud of our city when she learned that 
the guns of Sumter had insulted the American flag ! What 
city but our own may claim the honor of sending the first com- 
pany to the front to resent the insult? From our halls of 
learning, homes, and shoi)s, we sent men who were found in the 
thickest of the fray, regardless of personal wounds and hard- 
ships when their country's life and honor were at stake. What 
citizen can stand over the flag-marked mounds in our ceme- 
teries, or behold the living veterans decorating the hillocks with 
colors and wreaths, without being proud of the records of our 
soldiers and sailors, and of the city that sent them ? Erelong 
Mother Earth will receive into her bosom that Grand Army 
of the Republic which paced up and down Southern lands, weak 
from the loss of blood and the lack of food ; but never need 
our city blush to proclaim to future generations the patriotism, 
the self-sacrifice, the heroism of her sons who participated in 
the Rebellion. All honor and praise to these veterans who so 
nobly followed the example of her sons of old, who needed no 
urging to defend their country ! God was with them also in 
their lonely pickets, in the battles, long and fierce, for they were 
fighting for principles eternal as truth. Through God they did 
great acts. 

Many other cities may, with honor, refer to their patriotism, 
municipal government, and educational system. But our own 
city, which the coming week is to celebrate her fiftieth anni- 
versary, stands second to none in patriotism, in citizenship, and 
in education. She has grown to occupy a proud position in this 
nation, that knows no peer, as the centre of learning ; and she is 
pointed to by sister municipalities as an example of temperance, 
morality, and good municipal government. This shows much 
for which to be thankful. And yet we who live here know 
that much yet remains to be accomplished. Our past is bril- 
liantly lighted with heroic deeds and patriotic utterances. 
Wherever we turn, we behold landmarks ever reminding us 
of the character of former generations who lived and governed 
here. Our future, however, is to be made, and must be what 
we make it. 

With all our drawbacks and shortcomings, I think you will 
agree with me that our country secures to the individiial greater 
freedom, more intelligence, and more humane happiness than 
any other spot on earth." And yet while we are doing much 



148 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

to elevate and enlighten this community and age, is it not true 
that we can and should do more for the individual ? 

What constitutes a city ? Surely not paved streets and mac- 
adamized avenues, not parks carpeted with green and flowers, 
but " men who their duties know, but know their rights, and 
knowing, dare maintain." In order to have a city worthy of 
the name, the individual must be taught his duty to the com- 
munity at large. Before we can have ideal citizenship and 
good local government, we must see that our young are not neg- 
lected in matters pertaining to self, country, and God. Before 
our nation can be universally known as the one doing most for 
humanity we must have citizens who are in sympathy witli true 
American teaching and who will look to God as their ruler. 
" In God we trust " may be read on our coins. Better to read 
it in the hearts of the people, in the government they present 
before the world. 

Our city, therefore, should endeavor to teach the boy and the 
girl American truths and ideals, and so prepare them to enter 
manhood or womanhood with a sound and clear conception of 
American citizenship. 

Our churches and our homes have duties to perform to this 
American life as well as our public schools. They should strive 
to so fix God in the minds of the young that nothing may shake 
their faith in Ilim in the years to come. 

There is a tendency on the part of some to decry our public 
schools as godless, because denominational religious teaching is 
banished from the curriculum. This tendency I deem a recogni- 
tion of an unmet responsibility. Our public schools in America, 
being the schools of every sect and class of people, should aim to 
train the minds of the youth in harmony with the morality, judg- 
ment, and understanding of the future American. They should 
also teach God and Christ to the youth, but not along narrow 
sectarian lines. God will be taught to the child through the 
lessons in patriotism, and one's duty to his city, state, or nation. 
Christ will be taught also to the child through the lessons that 
emphasize the inestimable value of morality, honesty, and trust- 
worthiness, that aim to make every child realize that in the fu- 
ture he is to be responsible either as a father in his own home, 
as a citizen at the polls, as a business man in his office, as 
a laborer at his bench. While our schools are interested in 
the development of a child's character they cannot be rightly 



ROBERT WALKER. 149 

called godless. But they are not the special places for the re- 
ligious instruction of the youth. The church and the home 
must always be the sjiecial places where we are to receive our 
religious training. You, fathers and mothers, must in your own 
homes teach your children what it is to be a Christian, — what 
it is to be an honorable man, what it is to be a pure woman. 
You must not expect the stranger to do your duty to your child. 
You must not expect the child to give the same attention to 
one outside his home instructing him as he would to you. I 
appeal to your own experience. What prayer has remained in 
your memory like the one taught you at your mother's knee ? 
What advice has had the effect on your general living equal to 
your father's, given you at his fireside? The lesson of God, 
taught you and me in our homes, is and ever has been the 
foundation upon which our religious lives have been established. 
We will have no occasion to find fault with our public schools 
if the churches and the homes do their duty. Let God be your 
subject in the evening hours, when the day's work is finished, 
and your children gather around your knees. Let Christ be 
the model you exhort them to imitate and follow when they 
leave your homes. Let patriotism, American citizenshij), be 
constantly discussed within their hearing in order to waken 
in them their duties to their country. Teach them yourselves 
their religious instructions. Show thyself a man ; show thy- 
self a woman. Be a Christian on Monday as well as on Sun- 
day. The relation of mother is the most sacred on earth, the 
relation of father the most revered. Together they make home, 
— it matters not what it is, the log cabin on the fi'ontier, the 
farmhouse surrounded with meadows and orchards, the man- 
sion in the metropolis, — and back to it we often go in memory 
to live again our childhood, and recall the faces, the words, the 
deeds of those who made it so lovely and dear to our hearts, 
that we may say with the poet : — 

" Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, 
Be it ever so humble, there 's no place like home ; 
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, 
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere. 

" An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain ! 
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again ; 
The birds singing gayly that came at my call, — 
Oh, give me sweet peace of mind dearer thau all." 



150 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

When you have passed away, fathers and mothers, what kind 
of home shall your child recall when he shall bid time to flow 
backward that he may relive the days he is now spending with 
you? Will happiness be there? Will love be there? Will 
" home " be there ? Will Christ be there ? Will God be there ? 

If God is in your home, he will be in your child ; if in your 
child then in the citizen ; if in the citizen then in our govern- 
ment, local and national. Through God we will do great acts 
always. Who will predict the greatness of our city fifty years 
hence, if you teach your child to believe in God and in Jesus 
Christ his only begotten son and to do unto others as he would 
have them do unto him ? 



WILLIAM HENRY WHITNEY, i 

Do you ever think, girls and boys, that you would like to be 
famous ? Does your laudable pride in the fair fame of this 
school lead thought and purpose into the future, with hope as 
to what you will become and accomplish in the next fifty 
years ? What shall it be for the Morse School and its faithful 
teachers ? What for Cambridge in the next generation ? You 
are answering these questions. The answer rests with you. 
It centres in my mind about the word " grow." You must 
all grow in years ; but the " growth " I mean is not that. 
Grow to goodness, rather, to knowledge, and to merit. Then 
fame for you, and the teachers you love, will follow. 

Up in William Street, where I was born, there were once two 
objects at the edge of the sidewalk. Only one of them remains 
now. I suppose not a person in all the world remembers or 
has remembered or thought of the other for many years but 
myself. I have thought of it often for the lesson I learned in 
watching those two objects. The one which remains is now a 
noble elm tree, illustrating my thought of growth in usefulness, 
year by year. It is not a famous tree, like those Mr. Cook has 
so beautifully described, which are the pride of Cambridge his- 
tory, but it has fulfilled the highest hope of its earlier life and 
has a fame all its own. When I knew it first it did not occupy 
as much space as the forgotten object, but it grew, and grew. 
The other object did not grow, — only to grow old. It was a 
post. It rotted and fell away long years ago. Whenever you 
go through William Street, or by it, you think of my lesson, — 
grow, GROW, 

This is a talk of home. If it is worthy of any remembrance, 
I would have a home lesson in it, and stir up the pride of home 
in your hearts. Did you ever think of our local possessions 
here in ward four in the names of our streets and squares? 
There are some names native to the soil. There is the old 

1 Abstract of an address delivered to the pupils of the Morse Grammar 
School, June 2. 



152 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

name by wliich, doubtless, the Indian knew this locality, — 
" The Oyster Banks." I have the pleasure of presenting for 
one of your class-room cabinets a huge oyster-shell rescued 
from the gravel banks of Charles River, the remains of the 
house of a native oyster. " The Pine Grove " was a local 
name of my boyhood. " Fort Washington " and its memories 
are ours by a bond no one disputes. Borrowed, but not to be 
forgotten, is the Inman House now on Brookline and Auburn 
streets. Allston Block and Terrace, on Auburn Street, mark the 
site of the studio of the great painter who has given his name 
to the street on which your schoolhouse fronts, — " Allston." 
Generals " Putnam " and " Green " are Revolutionary heroes, 
whose names are on our boundary streets, and the former is 
very near us in the memories of the uses to which the Inman 
House has been put in its varied career. " Hamilton," aide- 
de-camp to Washington, and his great secretary of finance, 
" Franklin," philosopher and statesman, are names speaking 
to the pride of every American youth. " Decatur," naval hero 
of the United States flag in the Mediterranean, is recalled to 
us in the street bearing his name. The streets named " Sid- 
ney," " Watson," " Valentine," " Tufts," and " Hastings " and 
" Dana " squares, tell of local families and men who devel- 
oped the pastures and marshes into streets and houses. 

There is a noble cluster of names which we too thoughtlessly, 
I fear, utter, unmindful of their appeal to us from the strug 
gling republic in the trying days of 1812. American supremacy 
on the Great Lakes was secured by the Battle of Lake Erie : 
thus we have two of our streets named " Lake " Street and 
" Erie " Street. Three more complete the cluster : Commodore 
" Perry," the commander, and the brigs named " Lawrence " 
and " Niagara," successively his flagships, have given their 
names to us for highways. As we walk these ward four streets 
and glance at the signboards Perry's dispatch to General 
Harrison, " We have met the enemy and they are ours, — two 
ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop," rings in our 
ears, — a hero's exulting shout in victory. Captain Lawrence 
only a few months before had shown an indomitable spirit in 
defeat in words scarcely less notable : " Don't give up the 
shi})," he said ; and left his name, with these other illustrious 
ones, to Perry's flagship and to our locality. 

These recollections are ours, scholars of the Morse School. 



WILLIAM HENRY WHITNEY. 153 

Keep their memory bright. You may bear on to new fame 
our fair city. Not one, but many strive for that. Grow in 
merit, and be worthy of it. Never disgrace with your miscon- 
duct this bright record. These faithful teachers will follow 
your after course with tender pride. Let that be your inspira- 
tion, too. And when you may in memory recall the record 
which fifty years have wrought through you, may you face 
the record with a serene satisfaction, based on honest endeavor 
to do your part well. Commence now, and never falter. Cam- 
bridge and its history is in your hands. 



HIS EXCELLENCY, ROGER WOLCOTT,i 

ACTING GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

It seems to me appropriate to-day that the word which the 
commonwealth should bring to you is a word of hearty congrat- 
ulation. The city of Cambridge, owing to her position of close 
proximity to the life of our capital city, owing to her enviable, 
honored past, and owing to the various institutions within her 
borders, is exceptional within the boundaries of the common- 
wealth. 

To-day you celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of your incor- 
poration as a city. I suppose it is in the mind of every one 
of you as it is in mine, when I say that your memory and life 
go far back of this brief record of half a century. Your memory 
harks back to the time when Newtowne was merely a cluster of 
houses on the banks of the Charles River. It recalls every 
incident which is the remarkable possession of Cambridge. It 
recalls the early and honorable foundation of Harvard College, 
it recalls all the events that bring us up to the beginning of the 
Revolutionary War. And so, gentlemen, all through that time, 
the memory of the long ago comes back to us again. 

It seems to me that the word " congratulation," which the 
commonwealth brings to you to-day, might take many forms. 
It might make special mention of the many names with which 
your history is associated, and it might speak of your excellence 
as a city in many respects. But it is the honored past which 
comes to our minds to-day. It is well for the commonwealth to 
remember that you are the fourth city in the point of age within 
her borders. There were but three cities ahead of you. But 
Cambridge exemplifies most in the richness of her historic past. 
Why, think of it ! With your Washington headquarters and 
your Washington Elm, under which that greatest of Americans 
first took command of the Colonial armies, everything places 
Cambridge in a position to be envied by every other city in the 
commonwealth. 

* Speech delivered at the banquet in Union Hall, June 3. 



HIS EXCELLENCY, ROGER WOLCOTT. 155 

Associated with your beautiful city with bonds almost indis- 
soluble, is Harvard College. One is incomplete without the 
other ; each takes lustre from the light shed from the other. 
Cambridge and Harvard College ! What would one be without 
the other ? 

Coming down to your history as a city, there are many 
thoughts suggested to my mind. The thought that mere popu- 
lation, the number and size of your warehouses and other out- 
ward and more material evidences of activity, do not constitute 
greatness occurs to me. There is something more, something 
that cannot be set down in the tables of a census. It is the 
great memories of the past. 

Your present condition and your future promise are what 
most concern the commonwealth to-day. In regard to that I 
think that you afford an example of one of the finest municipal 
existences in New England, but your past is wiped away unless 
you are worthy of it and continue to realize the promise which 
that past affords. Your present condition is due to the fact 
that you have in a great measure solved the problems of muni- 
cipal government. To-day you work together, and all parties 
and all religious denominations work together for a common 
purpose. This problem for you is recent, more recent than it 
is in Boston, and Boston itself is young. I know of a man who 
walks the streets of Boston to-day who has shaken hands with 
every mayor of the city, three of the same name as that of the 
present mayor. 

I might congratulate you on many things, but I prefer to 
congratulate you on your honored past, and, finally, on the pres- 
ent condition of your municipal government and on the bright 
prospects of the city of Cambridge. 



REVEREND THEODORE FRANCIS WRIGHT, Ph. D.,i 

DEAN OF THE NEW-CHURCH THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL. 

When Cambridge was first settled, it was selected as a com- 
mon place of defense for all the people living along these 
waters. It was so chosen because it lay in the middle of the 
curve drawn around Boston from the northern and southern 
shores. For the same reason it became the central camp of the 
army surrounding Boston in the Revolution, and it was made 
the headquarters of the commanding general. 

I was lately calling upon some friends in this part of the 
city, and they showed me a Kttle book, saying that it was a 
history of Cambridge. I borrowed it and read it with great 
interest. It proved to be an account given by a man named 
S. S. Simpson of his life in East Cambridge when there was 
only one house there. My friends found that it was not known 
in our city library, and they kindly placed it there. I read 
an account of a great storm, about the year 1820, and some 
other events, in this book, especially about a cold day when 
many people were frozen right in the town. 

From that time we can come down to the year 1848 when 
this Allston School began, and it is interesting to know the 
story of the remarkable man for whom it was named, about 
where he lived, and how he worked on his pictures, and how 
at last he was taken away before he could finish his greatest 
picture, or even bring it as near to completion as it had been 
several years before. 

It was in the year 1848 that Mr. Roberts began to teach tliis 
school, when fields lay all round it and long before there were 
any street cars. How good it is that he can be with us to-day ! 

There have been a great many famous people who have lived 
in Cambridge, and I think that you may like to hear a few 
anecdotes about such men as old Dr. Holmes, and Professor 
Sophocles and dear old Dr. Peabody. 

1 Abstract of an address delivered to the pupils of the Allston Grammar 
School, June 2. 



f 

THEODORE FRANCIS WRIGHT. 157 \^ 

But while these people have passed on, we have many still V 

to be grateful for. Think what Mr. Rinclge has clone for our 5 

city ; is not that a fine example ? And think what a blessing ':{ 

the parks will be to us when they are completed. And think , 
what good Mr. Beach has done in leading our forces against the 

rumsellers. And think how much brotherly feeling there is in ; 
the city, and how united we all are in good work. So we keep 

the jubilee very joyfully. ;ji 



REV. THEODORE FRANCIS WRIGHT, Ph.D.i 

" The city lieth foursquare." — Revelation xxi. 16. 

To one looking at Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, the 
city presents a perfectly square form. Standing on the oppo- 
site side of the Kedron Valley, its eastern wall runs in a straight 
line across his field of view from north to south, and then turns 
at right angles, westward. Its breadth would naturally be 
reckoned along this wall, its length in the opposite direction, 
and its height from the bottom of the valley. 

In the book of Revelation we have a description of a spiritual 
vision, but the resemblance of that city to the earthly Jerusa- 
lem, from which indeed it was named, is so manifest that we 
think of the " mountain great and high " as if it were the 
Mount of Olives, and the walls as if they were those visible in 
this world. Both cities were foursquare, the heavenly more 
exactly so than the earthly. 

The description of the spiritual city would not have been 
given unless there had been something in these particulars re- 
lating to the religious life. It must be transparent, it must be 
established on the rock of truth, and it must be foursquare. 
We are so familiar with the application of the word " square " 
to conduct, that it is hardly necessary to dwell upon it, except 
to point out that what makes a square life is a just balance of 
the affections and the reason. If one is wholly moved by his 
affections, we do not regard him as well developed, because he 
grows only in one way, and becomes enthusiastic or sentimental. 
He has length, but not breadth, of character. So again of a 
coldly intellectual man who reasons about everything, but never 
feels strong emotions. He is one-sided also, he has breadth 
but not length. 

The foursquare man feels earnestly, and thinks carefully. 
He is both broad and long. His impulses are balanced by his 

* Abstract of a sermon preached at the chapel of the New-Church Theo- 
logical School, May 31. 



THEODORE FRANCIS WRIGHT. 159 

rationality. It is a noble combination, perhaps rarely reached, 
but it is conceivable, and nothing less satisfies our convictions. 
It is what we are all striving- for, and is seen with sufficient 
distinctness to be our goal in life. We especially admii'e those 
who have this balance of character, and we wish them to be 
put into places of resiJonsibility, for we feel safer under such 
leadership than under any other. 

It is an interesting and confirmatory fact that the objects 
before the Israelites in their worship were square. In the 
tabernacle the " holy of holies " was a square room, and the 
" holy " place was a double square. The altars were square. 
Right-angles characterized the court and the camp. In the 
temple the same form prevailed. We find nothing of irregular 
form appearing in any of their ceremonies. 

In Christianity, as it was in its early purity, there was a 
beautiful balance of love and wisdom. The mark of Christians 
was brotherly love, but with this love went distinct teaching. 
Our Lord was a teacher of men. The apostles were teachers. 
While the sick were healed, the gospel was preached. People 
were not only mercifvdly treated, but they were instructed. 

In later generations brotherly love declined amid the fierce 
contests of the Councils, and the church became very one-sided. 
Subtle arguments were given from the pulpits. Men denounced 
each other. Differences of opinion led to cruel persecutions. 
Faith alone took the place of faith and charity. On the other 
hand the ignorant zeal of monks sought to counteract the dead- 
ness of the church, but it was unintelligent and misguided. 
Mediaeval Christianity of every kind was utterly out of balance. 

The only hope of the Christianity of the future is that it 
shall be fully developed both in heart and in head, full of loving 
service of the Lord and mankind, and also wise in discerning 
the laws of life and the order of Providence. 

These remarks have been made because a city can be only 
what its citizens are. If they are square, the city will be ; if 
they are of crooked lives, the city will be a bad place to live in. 
Tried by this test at its jubilee, Cambridge has much to be 
grateful for, and very little to be ashamed of. Its officials are 
in the main men who hold their places by virtue of their actual 
fitness for them. The close scrutiny of their acts, which is 
maintained by the non-partisan organizations, induces improve- 
ment in the public service by eliminating the less useful officials 



160 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

and putting better men in their places. The atmosphere of 
the city hall is not corrupt. We highly respect our office- 
bearers. 

Not only so, but in what it does for the needy there is much 
of kindness combined with good judgment. Public charity, 
unregulated by wisdom, may do much harm, increasing the 
evils which it attempts to assuage. But in our city one may 
go from the almshouse through all the institutions of mercy 
and see only what he can fully approve. In this respect we 
have much to be grateful for to those who have generously 
given time and kind thought, as well as money, to all these 
places of mercy. 

It is in the average home, however, that we may see the true 
unit of the municipality's strength. With relatively few ex- 
ceptions these homes are cheerful, tasteful, and every way ad- 
mirable. As the children stream forth in the morning on the 
way to school, they show the nature of the homes from which 
they come forth, and give evidence that sensible parents know 
how to provide wisely for their children. There is in this city 
but little extravagance, or attempt at display, and thousands 
are paying honestly for what they buy, and our tradespeople 
go on steadily for long years. In their domestic life, good 
sense and purity characterize our people. 

The churches have become more fully united for the public 
good in this city than in most others, possibly than in any other. 
To a stranger it is amazing to see the cordial cooperation of 
Catholic and Protestant, white and black. The clergy take 
the lead, not condemning each other's faiths, and the people 
follow by working together in many ways. The propriety of 
having as many church homes as the community really needs 
is not disputed, but it is seen that in moral work all the churches 
can act together, forming a foursquare spiritual city. If there 
be still any bigotry among us which would seek to prosper 
without aiding in general good work, it is a one-sided growth 
and is seen to be such. 

The city seen by John in Patmos was a prophecy, which is 
slowly being fulfilled here and elsewhere. If we do our part as 
disciples of the Lord Jesus and as citizens of our beloved city, 
that fulfillment will be extended even until the saying comes 
true, that " the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the 
Lord as the waters cover the sea." 



III. 




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ROSTER OF THE PROCESSION, JUNE 3. 

Detail of 16 mounted police, commanded by Chief L. J. Cloyes. 
Hon. John Read, chief marshal. 
Lieut. W. A. Hayes, chief of staff. 
Thomas W. Henry, bugler. 

Aids — Capt. Edward E. Mason, Mr. M. C. Beedle, Dr. A. L. Norris, 
Mr. A. M. Lunt, Dr. E. H. Stevens, Mr. A. J. Littlefield, Capt. J. 
S. Sawyer, Capt. F. S. Hill, Mr. E. W. Pike, Mr. George H. How- 
ard, Mr. W. H. Eveleth. 

Staff — Mr. Hugh Bancroft, Mr. Ossian H. Brock, Mr. Louis F. 
Baldwin, Mr. E. H. Bright, Mr. A. H. Bill, Mr. Sumner A. Brooks, 
Mr. John S. Clary, Mr. Walter A. Claflin, Mr. George E. Close, 
Mr. G. H. Cutler, Mr. William E. Doyle, Jr., Dr. William Fergu- 
son, Mr. E. T. Gale, Mr. Albert F. Harlow, Mr. S. S. Hastings, 
Mr. Thomas W. Henry, Mr. A. J. Holbrook, Mr. John Hopewell, 
Jr., Mr. Ray Greene Huling, Mr. Charles M. Jones, Mr. G. M. 
Joll, Mr. Stillman F. Kelley, Mr. George H. Kelley, Jr., Mr. 0. F. 
Kendall, Dr. William C. Lane, Mr. H. G. Low, Mr. P. H. Moriarty, 
Mr. C. A. Mason, Mr. John Mahady, Mr. James A. Maskell, Mr. 
Fred D. Norton, Mr. John H. Ponce, Mr. John E. Parry, Mr. C 
B. Parker, Mr. C. C. Read, Mr. Frederick W. Rogers, Mr. J. B. 
Read, Rev. George Skene, Dr. C H. Thomas, Mr. J. C. Watson, 
Mr. C. E. Wentworth, Mr. Charles 0. Whitten, Mr. H. W. Whit- 
ing, Mr. William Westcott. 

ESCORT TO THE PROCESSION". 

Fifth Regiment, M. V. M., Lieut.-Col. J. H. Whitney commanding ; 
Maj. Geo. H. Benyon ; Maj. Wm. H. Oakes ; Maj. A. M. Mossman ; 
Lieut. Harry P. Ballard, adjutant; Lieut. Frederick P. Barnes, 
quartermaster ; Maj. Charles C. Foster, surgeon ; Lieut. H. Lincoln 
Chase, assistant surgeon ; Lieut. A. C. Warren, paymaster ; Lieut. 
Robert B. Edes, inspector of rifle practice ; Rev. Samuel J. Bar- 
rows, chaplain ; 5th Regiment band. 

Co. A — Capt. William W. Stover, Lieut. William S. Tolman, Lieut. 
Roland W. Bray. 

Co. B — Capt. Edward E. Mason, Lieut. Charles W. Facey, Lieut 
Charles J. Kirby. 



164 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

Co. C — Capt. J. Albert Scott, Lieut. Harry P. Inman, Lieut. Ernest 

R. Springer. 
Co. D — Capt. Willard C Butler, Lieut. Arthur E. Lewis, Lieut. 

Edwin A. Dunton. 
Co. E — Capt. John U. Wescott, Lieut. George H. Lowe, Lieut. Otto 

J. C. Neilson. 
Co. F — Capt. Murray D. Clement, Lieut. Clifford E. Hamilton, Lieut. 

Louis R. Gindrat. 
Co. G — Lieut. William W. Wade, Lieut. Thomas McCarthy. 
Co. H — Capt. Francis Meredith, Lieut. Fred McDonald, Lieut. H. 

Y. Gilson. 
Co. I — Lieut. Herbert A. Clark, Lieut. George H. Sykes. 
Co. K — Ca})t. Walter E. Morrison, Lieut. Harry L. Kincaide, Lieut. 

William H. Whitney. 
Co. L — Capt. Elmore E. Locke, Lieut. James H. Mann, Lieut. Frank 

F. Cutting. 
Co. M — Capt. Charles F. Reed, Lieut. Harry C. Moore, Lieut. 

Charles H. Groves. 

ESCORT TO THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR. 

1st Cadet band, 35 pieces. 
Ist Corps of Cadets, M. V. M. — Lieut. Col. Thomas F. Edmands, 

commanding. 

Maj. George R. Rogers. 

Adjt. James E. R. Hill. 

Qm. Charles T. Lovering. 

Surgeon William L. Richardson. 

Assistant Surgeon Chas. M. Green. 

Paymaster Charles L. Stevens. 

I. of R. P. William A. Hayes. 

Co. A — Capt. H. Appleton, Lieut. Frank L. Joy, Lieut. Herbert C 

Wells. 
Co. B — Capt. William H. Alline, Lieut. William B. Clark, Lieut. 

Winthrop Wetherbee. 
Co. C — Capt. Andrew Robeson, Lieut. Walter L. Bouve, Lieut. 

Richard D. Sears. 
Co. D — Capt. Henry B. Rice, Lieut. Thomas B. Ticknor, Lieut 
Edward E. Currier. 

Invited guests in carriages as follows : — 
Carriage containing Acting Gov. Wolcott, President Eliot of Harvard 

University, Mayor Bancroft, and Mr. H. 0. Houghton. 
Carriage containing President Fairbairn of the board of aldermen. 

Gen. Dalton, and Gen. Chamj)lin. 
Carriage containing President Odiorne of the common council. Col. 
Benton, and Col. Kenny. 




THE FIFTH REGIMENT, M. V. M. — MASSACHUtSETT.s AVENUE 




Copyright by D. W. ButtcrtieU, Cambridge. Mas-.. J 



THE FIFTH REGIMENT. M. V. M.- CENTRAL .SQUARE 



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ROSTER OF THE PROCESSION. 165 

Carriage containing Alderman Bleiler and Mr. H. A. Thomas. 

Carriage containing Alderman Bradford, Judge Bond, and Bishop 
Lawrence. 

Carriage containing Alderman Stearns and Postmaster Coveney, of 
Boston. 

Carriage containing Alderman Rourke, State Auditor Kimball, and 
Councillor Raymond. 

Carriage containing Alderman Cutter and ex-Mayor Saunders. 

Carriage containing Alderman Conant, ex-Mayor Bradford, ex-Mayor 
Montague, and ex-Mayor Hall. 

Carriage containing Alderman Keith, ex-Mayor Fox, and Judge Ham- 
mond. 

Carriage containing Alderman Wood, Senator Dallinger, Judge Mc- 
Intire, and Judge Lawton. 

Carriage containing Alderman Douglass, Mayor Perry of Medford, 
Rev. Dr. Alexander McKenzie, and Mayor Cobb of Newton. 

Carriage containing Alderman White, Representative Myers, Mayor 
Henderson of Everett, and Maj^or Greene of Fall River. 

Carriage containing City Clerk Brandon, Mayor Rockvi^ell of Fitch- 
burg, Representative Fillmore, and Mayor Robinson of Gloucester. 

Carriage containing Councilman Davis, Representative Dickinson, and 
Hon. Frank A. Hill. 

Carriage containing Councilman Morgan, Mayor Curran of Holyoke, 
Mayor Bessom of Lynn, and Mayor Bartlett of Marlboro. 

Carriage containing Councilman Coolidge, Representative Coleman, 
Mayor Williamson of Brockton, and Hon. Chester W. Kingsley. 

Carriage containing Councilman Preble, Mayor Junklns of Lawrence, 
and Representative Donovan. 

Carriage containing Councilman Willard, and Mayor Walker of Mai- 
den. 

Carriage containing Councilman Apsey, Judge Almy, Judge Parmen- 
ter, and Sheriff Cushing. 

Carriage containing Councilman Perkins, County Commissioner Read, 
County Commissioner Uphani, and County Commissioner Bigelow. 

Carnage containing Councilman Googins, Clerk of Courts Hurd, 
County Treasurer Hayden, and Registrar of Deeds Stevens. 

Carriage containing Councilman Saundei's, District Attorney Wier, 
Registrar of Probate Folsom, and Registrar of Deeds Thompson. 

Carriage containing Councilman Montague, Selectmen Evans and 
Coon of Watertown. 

Carriage containing Councilman Scott, Selectmen Fessenden, Tufts, 
and Farmer of Arlington. 

Carriage containing President Yorxa, of the park commission, Select- 
men Creeley and Davis of Belmont. 



166 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

CaiTiage containing George S. Saunders and Charles S. Childs. 
Carriage containing Rev. D. N. Beach, Rev. Fr. Scully, Registrar of 

Voters Cox, and H. Porter Smith. 
Carriage containing E. B. Hale, W. T. Piper, and Superintendent of 

Schools Cogswell. 
Carriage containing Councilman Chaplin, City Treasurer Dallinger, 

Registrar of Voters Pear, and Dr. E. El. Spencer. 
Carriage containing Otis S. Brown, City Engineer Hastings, Superin- 
tendent of Streets Brown, and John D. Billings. 
Carriage containing Princijjal Assessor Gooch, City Auditor Upham, 

City Solicitor G. A. A. Pevey, and Dr. James A. Dow. 
Carriage containing E. B. James, C. E. Hadcock, W. L. R. Gifford, 

and C. W. Cheney. 
Carriage containing Clerk of Committees McDuffie, J. Lyman Stone, 

Superintendent of Buildings Gray, and Dr. Lewis L. Bryant. 
Carriage containing Sealer of Weights and Measures Roberts and 

Bridge Commissioner William J. Marvin. 
Carriage containing Dr. diaries Bullock, John T. Shea, Hon. William 

B. Durant, and George A. Allison. 
Carriage containing Executive Clerk E. A. Counihan and J. Milton 

Stone, Jr. 
Carriage containing representatives of the press. 

FIRST DIVISION. 

C. H. Morse, chief of division. 

Aids — S. I. B. Stodder, Harry W. Conant, Horace L. Whitney, A. 
L. Ware, Frank B. Hopewell, Herbert Sawin, Charles L. Hopewell, 
Clifford W. Dow. 

Lynn Cadet band. Mounted Lancers ; S. S. Lurvey, leader, 28 pieces. 

First battalion of cavalry, Maj. Horace G. Kemp commanding, Adjt. 
Frank L. Locke, Qm. Sullivan B. Newton, Surgeon George Wescott 
Mills, Veterinary Surgeon Austin Peters, Paymaster James W. 
Pierce, Inspector of Rifle Practice Horace D. Litchfield, Chaplain 
W. H. Rider. 

Co. A, Boston National Lancers, Capt. Oscar A. Jones commanding, 
Lieut. D. A. Young, Lieut. Curtis Guild, Jr. 

Co. D, Roxbury Horse Guards, Capt. William A. Perrins command- 
ing, Lieut. John Perrins, Jr., Lieut. James L. Fairbanks. 

1st company of volunteers of the war of 1861, Levi Hawkes, presi- 
dent ; John Kinnear, vice-president ; George H. Hastings, secretary ; 
Capt. Thomas H. Lucy. S. D. Hiscock, William Shannon, D. R. 
Melclier, George W. Wheelock, John White, Thomas Preston. C. 
E. Pierce, C D. Kinnear, Joseph Cartright, Gen. S. E. Chamber- 
lain, S. M. Busnach, Edward Chandler, Joseph Gay, Richard T. 
Marvin, and Henry A. Smith ; 18 men in a barge. 




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CARRIAGES CONTAINING INVITED GUESTS - MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE 




CARKIAGES CONTAINING INVITED (U'ESTS- CENTRAL SQIAKE 



ROSTER OF THE PROCESSION. 167 

William H. Smart post 30, G. A. R,, George E. Deitz commanding; 
Benjamin F. Hastings, sr. vice-com. ; William F. Gallagher, jr. vice- 
com. ; James B. Soper, adjt. ; Amos B. Jarvis, sergt. maj. ; J. E. 
Ellis, chaplain ; C. H. Collins, surg. ; 100 men in four barges. 

Charles Beck post 56, G. A. R., A. H. Ricker commanding ; T. J. 
Breen, sr. vice-com. ; Frank J. O'Reilly, jr. vice-com. ; A. W. Glid- 
den, jr. adjt. ; W. H. Eveleth, qm. ; Matliias Fleck, surg. ; A. W. 
Curtis, chaplain ; M. C. Beedle, officer of the day ; A. J. Littlefield, 
officer of the guard ; 50 men in two barges. 

Boston High School band, H. J. McBarron, leader ; 12 pieces. 

P. Stearns Davis post 57, G. A. R., Timothy J. Quinn commanding ; 
A. Metzger, sr. vice-com. ; Fred I. Mansfield, jr. vice-com. ; William 
Voit, officer of the day ; J. Gilligan, officer of the guard ; John 
Donelan, adjt. ; Andrew Burke, sergt. ; 45 men in two barges. 

John A. Logan post 186, G. A. R., Joseph T. Batcheller commanding ; 
Nelson A. Hallet, past com. of post 15 ; Past Com. J. P. Condon ; 
Samuel Spink, sr. vice-com. ; Fred O. Libby, jr. vice-com. ; 56 men 
in 14 barouches. 

S. S. Sleeper camp, Sons of Veterans band, C F. Brown, leader; 10 
pieces. 

S. S. Sleeper camp, Sons of Veterans, Capt. George A. Wilson, com- 
manding ; Arthur Pierson, first lieut. ; Daniel Connors, second 
lieut. ; Frank Littlefield, first sergt. ; 125 men. 

Cambridge Manual Training School band, A. R. MacKusick, leader ; 
28 pieces. 

Cambridge Manual Training School, Jeremiah F. Downey, command- 
ing ; Capt. Richard F. Phelps, com. of escort ; 30 men. 

C. M. T. S., hose 4; Lieut. Herbert Seaverns, commanding. 

C. M. T. S., hose 5 ; Capt. Harry F. Grant, commanding. 

C. M. T. S., hook and ladder; Lieut. Cato Thompson, commanding. 
C. M. T. S. floats. 

Cambridge High School, Capt. Samuel Usher, commanding ; William 
Parker, first lieut. ; Edward White, second lieut. ; George Holbrook, 
first sergt. ; Joseph McCarthy, second sergt. ; William Bateman, 
third sergt. ; William Donovan, fourth sergt. ; 75 boys. 

Latin and High School Review ; W. R. Estabrook, editor and board 
of directors, in barge. 

Cambridge Latin School, Capt. Paul H. Kelsey, commanding ; Norman 
F. Hall, first lieut. ; Henry J. Winslow, second lieut. ; M. D. Miller, 
first sergt. ; Leon Jaquith, second sergt. ; 40 boys. 

Co. E, 2d regiment, Union Boys' brigade. First Baptist church, Capt. 
A. M. Blackburn commanding ; George Doherty, first lieut. ; Ed- 
ward Perkins, second lieut. ; J. Blackburn, musician ; 56 boys. 

Co. G, Union Boys' brigade, Capt. W. S. Carpenter commanding ; G. 
W. Jones, first lieut. ; William Pitman, second lieut., 50 boys. 



168 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

North Avenue Boys' brigade. 

Fife and drum corps. 

Union cadets — Alexander A. Cunha commanding ; Louis A. Packard, 

first lieut. ; Albert Harmon, second lieut. ; 20 boys. 
Trinity Boys' brigade — Maj. F. S. Child commanding ; William 

Louglirey, acting capt. ; Thomas H. Maxwell, first lieut. ; Peter 

Tocliterman, second lieut. ; William Gimpel, first sergt. ; J. C. 

Martel, second sergt. ; R. S. McKay and H. N. Hovey, Jr., aids ; 

George Kelly, drummer ; Edward Graves, color sergt. ; Charles 

Parkhurst, bugler ; 40 boys. 

Fife and drum corps. 
Cambridge Cadets — Capt. J. J. Owens commanding ; William H. 

Benson, first lieut. ; C. A. Gurney, second lieut. ; George Rollins, 

first sergt. ; Harry Rice, P. J. Anglin, Charles McCourt, and Charles 

Busnach, corporals. 

SECOND DIVISION. 

Harvard students. 

Alfred Borden, '9G, chief of division. 

Harvard College band, 20 musicians. 

Harvard College drum corps, 30 drummers. 

Representation of graduating cap in the colors of the seniors (black 

and yellow), carried by E. C. Knoblauch, '96. 

Senior class, 100 men. 

Banner, " What would Cambridge be without us ? " 

Marshal for '97, J. W. Dunlop. 

Aids, E. N. Wrightington, Arthur N. Beale, William L. Garrison, and 

Arnold Scott. 

Junior class, 200 men. 

Float containing John Lovett, " John the Orangeman," with donkey 

and cart, attended by J. Moulton, '98, and C. C. Bull, '97. 

Marshal for '98, Norman W. Cabot. 

Aids, Philip S. Dalton, Gerrish Newell, J. L. Knox, and S. L. Fuller. 

Sophomore class, 300 men. 

Red parasol brigade, Harvard '99. 

Marshal for '99, Arthur Adams. 

Aids, P. M. Jaffray, F. Holt, P. G. Carleton, H. H. Fish, H. S. 

Dennison, and D. Fairbank. 

Freshmen class, 600 men. 

THIRD DIVISION. 

George S. Evans, chief of division. 
Aids — Rev. Alexander Blackburn, William Read 2d, Ross McPher- 
son, Charles H. Titus, James P. Welch, F. M. Small, and W. H. 
Evans. 




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ROSTER OF THE PROCESSION. 1C9 

Signal corps on bicycles ; Sergt. Caleb E. West commanding, nine men. 

Stiles band of Lynn, 25 pieces ; Henry E. Stiles, leader. 

Provisional battalion, M. V. M. 

Marshal, Capt. Walter E. Lombard. 

Chief of staff, Capt. George F. Quinby. 

Aids — Lieut. H. M. Winter, Lieut. F. S. Howes, Lieut. George E. 

Marshall, Lieut. H. W. Sprague, and Adjt. H. J. Green. 
1st Co. — Lieut. John E. Day commanding ; 30 men. 
2d Co. — Lieut. Marshall Underwood commanding ; 30 men. 
3d Co. — Capt. John Boardman, Jr., commanding ; 30 men. 
4th Co. — Lieut. J. O. Porter commanding ; 79 men from the 1st 

Bat., Naval brigade, M. V. M., divided as follows : 
Section of artillery made up from four companies, Lieut. Gardner 

Jones commanding. 
1st platoon — Lieut. George S. Selfredge commanding. 
2d platoon — Lieut. Daniel Chase commanding. 
1st section of battery — Ensign Willis Munro commanding. 
2d section — Lieut. Edward W. Nichols commanding. 
Third section — Ensign Daniel H. Sughrue commanding. 
Fourth section, 1st company of infantry — Ensign W. S. Dodge com- 
manding. 
2d company of infantry — Ensign Crosby commanding. 
Ambulance detachment — Sergt. W. H. Sprague commanding ; 13 

men. 
Patrol wagon from police station 2 — J. T. Cook, driver. 
Cambridge fire department, Thomas J. Casey, chief ; James Casey, 

driver. 
Aids — Engineers N. W. Bunker, C. W. Brackett, William B. Cade. 
Steamer No. 1, Capt. John L. Jones commanding ; 12 men. 
Steamer No. 2, Capt. James Cunningham commanding ; 12 men. 
Steamer No. 3, Capt. Walter Baker commanding ; 12 men. 
Steamer No. 4, Capt. George F. Tibbitts commanding ; 12 men. 
Steamer No. 5, Capt. Francis F. Scanlan commanding ; 12 men. 
Steamer No. 6, Cajit. John H. Brown commanding ; 12 men. 
Steamer No. 7, Capt. William F. Stearns commanding ; 12 men. 
Chemical engine No. 1, L. C. Clark commanding ; 3 men. 
Chemical engine No. 2, George W. Butler commanding ; 3 men. 
Hook and ladder No. 1, Capt. John T. McNamee commanding ; 14 

men. 
Hook and ladder No. 2, Capt. W. F. Newman commanding ; 14 men. 
Hook and ladder No. 3, Capt. T. L. Hunter commanding ; 8 men. 
Johnson's drum corps of Worcester, A. H. Johnson leader ; 20 men. 
Red Jacket Veteran Firemen's association of Cambridge, Foreman 

William T. King commanding ; 150 men. 

Hand engine, " Red Jacket." 



170 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

Reinwald military band of Salem, 25 pieces ; R. L. Reinwald, leader. 
Hand engine " White Angel." 

Salem Veteran Firemen's association ; Foreman Robert E. Pollock 
commanding, 225 men. 

Garnett division, No. 13, U. R., K. of P., Brig. Gen. J. E. Wilson, 
marshal ; staff : Past Brig. Gen. G. W. S. Winston, Inspector Gen. 
A. A. Kiner, Col. Robert Diggs of Worcester ; 50 men. 

Carriage containing past officers : George E. Gardner, Robert Tray- 
man, John A. Simons, and C. H. Bennett. 

Mansfield's Maplewood band of Maiden, 32 pieces, E. B. Mansfield, 
leader. 

Bunker Hill lodge, 48, German Order of Harugari, Charles Straup 
commanding ; 75 men. 

Carriages containing past officers : W. E. Scholl, Fred Stucke, G. E. 
Faul, John Kaleskopf, Philip Young, Robert Rausch, John Sperry, 
Louis Drevenstedt, Charles V. Juger, Fred Staudinger, Nathan 
Schloss, Marcus Kallman ; from Humboldt Mannie, Nicholas Young, 
John Stutcle, Frank Backeman, and Louis Ostermeyer. 

Barge containing the Concordia and Literary association ; Charles 
Emmel, leader ; 25 men. 

Cambridge Turnverein, led by a four-horse float, Miss L. Freda Mi- 
chelson on the throne ; 13 athletes, — men, women, boys and girls. 

Class in athletics, Anton Steidele, leader. 

Luzo American band, 24 pieces ; A. Silva leader. 

Luzo American club and Monte Pio Gremio Lusitanio society ; 100 
men, Jesse Tavares, commanding. 

Carriage containing Viscount de Valle da Costa, consul of Portugal ; 
Francisco Andoroda, Alexandrino Augusto, and Jose J. Mella. 

Cambridge Council, 12, Home Circle, represented by Mrs. G. B. 
Hoelscher, Mrs. N. W. Brewer, Mrs. M. L. Parker, Mrs. M. R. 
Thomas, Miss Lena Thomas, Miss Nellie Sawtelle, Arthur Lathrop, 
William Wood, William Hoelscher, William Parker, William L. 
Lathrop, all in a barge. 

FOURTH DIVISION. 

Edmund Reardon, chief of division. 
Aids — James F. Aylward, John J. Ahern, Dr. J. E. Dwyer, W. F. 

Brooks, Dr. T. E. Cunningham, Dr. J. H. Cunningham, J. E. 

Smith. H. E. McGoldrick. 
John Boyle O'Reilly band of Natlck, Francis J. Foley, leader; 35 

pieces. 
St. John's Literary Institute, Fred A. Gilligan commanding ; 250 men. 
Aids — John Dundee, James Murray, George F. INIahonoy, James 

Lundergan, James O'Connor, W. J. Ryan ; also George McMeni- 



4 




Copyriglit liy D. W. Biitterfiel.l. I'amhr.kc. Mas-.. Ji 



MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL BAND -CENTRAL SQUARE 







^ht"^, 



MANUAL TRAINTXr, SCHOOL FIRE RRIGADE 




Copyright by T). W. Huttcrticl.l. Caml-.ri.Isc. Mii..^.. .June .:. I89i; 

MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL FLOATS -TENTR A L SQrAIJE 




HIGH AND LAIIX SCHool. liOYS CKNTl.'AL .s()rAi;E 



ROSTER OF THE PROCESSION. 171 

men, Fred McMenimen, T. J. Flynn, and Charles Donovan, escort- 
ing Rev. P. B. Murphy of Natick. 

Carriages containing ex-members of the Institute. 

St. John's drum corps, M. A. Griffin, leader ; 15 pieces. 

St. John's Total Abstinence society, R. M. Walsh commanding ; 50 
men. 

St. Peter's Catholic Total Abstinence and Benevolent society, Edward 
Grant commanding ; 40 men. 

National band of Woburn, P. Calnah, Jr., leader ; 25 pieces. 

Co. G, Davitt guards ; 40 men, acting as escort to Hibernian divisions. 

John McSoi'ley, marshal of Hibernian divisions. 

Aids — Col. Roger Scannell, Peter McCaft'ery, J. J. Mahoney, F. 
O. White, Michael Fitzmaurice, William Halloran, and James 
Culhane. 

Ancient Order of Hibernians, division 5, N. J. O'Shaughnessy com- 
manding ; 200 men. 

Carriages with old members and banners. 

Ancient Order of Hibernians, division 15, Mortimer Downey com- 
manding ; 250 men. 

Carriages with members and banners. 

Walpole band, Jolin Vance, leader ; 25 pieces. 

Ancient Order of Hibernians, division 21, Robei't E. Powers com- 
manding ; 250 men. 

Carriages with members and banners. 
Ninth Regiment band, Thomas Ryan, leader; 25 pieces. 

Ancient Order of Hibernians, division 20, J. W. Flynn commanding ; 
25 men. 

American Watch Company band, J. M. Flockton, leader ; 30 pieces. 

Sacred Heart Pioneer corps, M. J. O'Connor commanding ; 100 men. 
Carriages with members and banner. 

Fr. Matthew Total Abstinence society, Jeremiah Crowley command- 
ing ; 200 men. 

Aids — M. Murphy, T. Collins, P. McCloskey, D. J. Donovan, J. A. 
Mulhern, M. Newman, James O'Brien, William Kelly, Thomas 
Burke, and M. J. Molley. 

St. Augustine band of South Boston, F. E. Grant, leader; 30 pieces. 

Cos. A. B, C, and D, Sacred Heart cadets, John Murray command- 
ing ; 200 boys 

Forty-five decorated barges containing Sacred Heart Sunday-school 
children. 

Charlestown Naval band, 25 pieces. 
Tammany Club (mounted). Edward J. Sennott, commanding ; 175 

men. 
Tammany Club barge containing club banner. 



172 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 



FIFTH mVISION. 

Patrick Crowley, chief of division. 

Aids — Colin Chisliolm, James F. Mullen, John McCullough, James 
Larkin, Thomas F. Good, John Gurry, J. B. Fitzpatrick, and John 
Riley. 

J. A. Mclsaac, chief marshal, representing the parish of St. Mary's 
Church of the Annunciation. 

Aids — Jeremiah McCarthy and James McDermott. 

Staff — Patrick Carroll, Dr. Henry Egan, George Farrell, Matthew 
P. Butler, Dr. J. D. Murphy, James J. Hurley, Michael J. Flynn, 
J. D. McGillivray, Peter Francis Bi'een, Patrick Lacy, Henry 
Finn, George Hanu, Robert White, Frank O'Brien, George Barry, 
Patrick Keenan, J. J. McLean, James Grant, Francis Traynor, 
George Carr, Dennis Mahoney, James Rourke, John Lee, and John 
McKeown. 

Reeves' American band of Providence, 30 pieces, D. W. Reeves, 
leader ; James Clark, drum major. 

St. Mary's Parochial School boys, 350 boys. Rev. Fr. John F. Mundy 
commanding ; Thomas Murphy, major ; Matthew Copithorne, 
William Mulverwell, Jerome Linehan, W^illiam Hayes, Park Dodd, 
William McLoughlin, captains. 

Tally-hos containing girls and teachers of St. Mary's School. 

Cambridgeport Gymnasium association, 250 men, D. F. Brown com- 
manding. 

First division — Thomas J. Condrick, captain, James Brogan, first 
lieutenant ; Reginald Smith, second lieutenant. 

Second division — Thomas Frawley, ca])tain ; Charles Sullivan, first 
lieutenant ; Michael J. McCarthy, second lieutenant. 

Third division — Daniel J. Carroll, captain ; Charles Sullivan, first 
lieutenant ; Michael J. McCarthy, second lieutenant. 

St. Mary's Total Abstinence society, 150 men, Pres. Edward C. Roche 
commanding ; George Rosenberg, George Eggleston, and John M. 
McMakin, caj)tains. 

Barouches containing Rev. F. X. Dolan, D. D., of the Cathedral of 
the Holy Cross, Boston ; Rev. Charles F. Donohue of Jamaica 
Plain, Rev. Mark Sullivan of Revere, and Rev. William J. Dwyer 
of Cambridgeport. 

SIXTH DIVISION. 

Edward H. Baker, chief of division. 
Aids — George E. Close, Fred S. Humiston, W. J. Moltman, Ezra 
T. Gale, Frank R. INIcDonald, Joseph H. Williams, Joseph J. 
Wilde, Isaac Chase. William A. Hunnewell, and E. R. Luke. 



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HARVARD STUDENTS, SENIOR (XASS - MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE 




HARVARD STUDENTS, SENIOR CLASS - HARVARD SQUARE 




HARVARD STUDENTS, JUNIOR CLASS AND "JOHN THE ORANGEMAN' 
MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE 




HAHVAKI) s'iri>K\'rs. F1;EsIIM.\X CLASS HAKNAIH) SQUARE 



ROSTER OF THE PROCESSION. 173 

Members of Citizens' Trade Association in carriages. 

Trade displays of business concerns. 

Stewart Bros. Co., carriage manufacturers, one four-horse drag, one 

three-horse drag, and a one-horse drag. 
Charles W. Dailey, stable, convalescent landau. 
E. R. Luke & Co., hay and grain, two teams. 
Plymouth Rock Gelatine Company, gelatine, three two-horse teams 

and two one-horse teams. 
Boston Tea Co., two one-horse teams. 

W. F. Holmes, hay and grain, one four-horse team loaded with hay. 
B. C. Hazel, house-painter, one wagon. 
M. R. Jouett &, Co., grocers, two teams. 
S. Rosenberg, boots and shoes, float containing a display of boots and 

shoes. 
Charles R. Teele, soap, one team. 
A. C. Curtis, grocer, four grocery wagons. 

E. A. Burroughs, Rockport Fish-market, wagon. 
Riverside Pottery, two teams. 

Charles Place & Co., Acme Market, three teams. 

Charles Place & Co., paper-box manufacturers, one team containing 
some of the ruins of the recent fire. 

P. H. Moriarty, shoe dealer, float containing machines and men making 
shoes. 

Cambridge Ice Co., five ice wagons. 

D. W. Hyde & Co., dry goods, one delivery wagon. 

G. A. Christopher, flavoring extracts, one team. 

New York Biscuit Co., crackers, four two-horse teams and two four- 
horse teams. 

F. M. Eaton, brushes and brooms, one team. 
Laminar Fibre Co., two teams. 

Otis S. Brown & Co., hay and grain, one two-horse team. 

William Caldwell, furniture, two teams. 

F. A. White, hardware, one team. 

Yerxa & Yerxa, grocers, nine wagons. 

George A. Webber, provisions, one team. 

Buttrick Bros., house-painters, one team. 

North Cambridge Cleaning and Dyeing Co., one team. 

Fred Hayden, house painter, one team. 

W. J. Heron, plasterer, one team. 

Ward's Market, provisions, five teams. 

P. Barry, fish, one team. 

D. M. Hazen & Son, confectionery, three teams. 

New England Pickling Co., one team. 

W. J. Newman, bicycles, one team. 



174 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

Charles Linehan, contractor, one two-horse team with stone-blasters 
at work, and two tip-carts loaded with sand and brick. 

Philip Braiim, grocer, one team. 

J. D. McHugh, one team. 

G. F. Ricker, carpet cleaning, two teams. 

Cambridge Laundry, nine teams. 

J. A. Holmes & Co., grocers, one team and wheelbarrow, illustrating 
the delivery of groceries by the firm in 1810-189G ; a float adver- 
tising Sunnier Mills flour ; and ten grocery wagons. 
Cambridge City band. 

Manhattan Market, groceries and provisions, four-horse drag contain- 
ing clerks dressed in white duck ; twenty drivers on horseback ; 
and six delivery wagons. 

W. A. Mason & Son, surveyors, one team bearing a large surveying 
instrument, " Have your street accepted." 

Cambridge Cooperative Society, groceries, one team. 

W. A. Bock, florist, one team bearing choice plants and flowers. 

H. S. Angus, building-mover, four teams containing building-moving 
materials. 

West End Cleaning Co., one team. 

Fleischman &, Co., yeast, six teams. 

J. F. Hucksam, provisions, two teams. 

D. Thomson, upholsterer, one team. 

C. E. Conder, one team containing Cream of Wheat flour. 
Conder & Campbell, grocers, three teams. 

E. & R. Laundry, two teams. 

Nortli Packing & Provision Co., pork products, four teams. 

G. F. Blake Mfg. Co., pumps, two teams. 

J. Reardon & Son, One Darr Soap, seven teams and float. 

William H. Wood & Co., lumber, three teams. 

Barbour Stockwell Co., machinists, four teams. 

Coleman Bros., coal and wood, five teams. 

Mt. Major Spring Water Co., one team. 

Curtis Davis «&; Co., soap, float containing 60,000 cakes of Welcome 

Soap ; one team bearing an improved soap-press ; two four-horse 

teams and one two-horse team. 
J. C. Davis & Co., soap, one team. 
Standard Oil Co., oil, one tank-team. 

Richardson & Bacon, coal and wood, twenty-eight teams. 
L. G. Burnham & Co., coal and wood, eight teams. 
A. H. Hews «& Co., pottery, float with men making little flower-pots. 
G. W. H. Moulton, ladders, three teams. 
George Close, confectionery, float describing candy-making, and two 

teams. 




Cup.vn.-lit l,y D. W. lliittirtii-U. CamhrWire, Mii»s., Jimr-:!. 1S90 



FIRE DEPARTMENT - CENTRAL 8QUARE 







Wljitm-v A- Sod, C'aulljrid 



FIRE DEPARTMENT 




Copyripht lijr n. «". niittcrlioM. CHml.rM.-.'. 'Hi--., .luu, ;, 1-lki 

PROVISIOXAI. BATTALION, M. V. M.- CENTRAL SQUARE 



i 




Copjrigbl b) 1). « . UuturtiiM. Cjiml.riJ,;c, Majr,, Juiiu I. l;!:*'. 

DETACHMENT, NAVAL BRIGADE, M. V. M.- CENTRAL SQUARE 



ROSTER OF THE PROCESSION. ^ 175 

Lauib & Ritchie, metal pipe, one team. 

Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers, two teams. 

Baker Hunnewell Co., coal and wood, five teams. 

Edward Kendall & Sons, boiler-makers, two teams bearing huge 
boilers. 

Boston Bridge AVorks, bridge-builders, one team. 

H. Wellington & Co., coal and wood, six teams. 

American Express Co., one team. 

Wellington & Buck, coal and wood, five teams. 

C. F. Hathaway, baker, ten teams. 

John P. Squire & Co., three teams. 

M. T. Cavanagh & Son, provisions and produce, one team. 

George S. Baxter, lumber, one team. 

Cambridge Baking Co., eight teams, and eighteen men di-essed in 
white, parading in three files, with letters on the breasts and backs 
that spelled " Quaker Health Bread." 

H. T. Hoffman, provisions, four teams. 

J. O'Neill, coal and wood, two teams. 

Alden Speare's Sons & Co., oil, one team. 

S. H. Mitchell, baker, three teams. 

George Carr, baker, two teams. 

Wheeler & Wilson, sewing-machines, one team. 

Boston Woven Hose and Rubber Co., one team with wheels about 
twenty feet in diameter, with " Vim " tires about two feet in diam- 
eter ; float showing firepipes ; float containing 3,500 Vim tires ; 
barge containing men and women, labelled " We Make Vim Tires ; " 
one order wagon ; float, showing the evolution of the Vim tires ; 
one team showing samples from the laboratory ; one team contain- 
ing hose ; one team showing the sheet-metal department ; teams 
showing the belting, sheet-metal, and machine department; one 
team containing a large rubber-tire wheel. 

George G. Page Box Co., box-manufacturers, three teams. 

J. J. Hill, provisions, three teams. 

F. P. Merrill, fancy groceries, tliree teams. 

Lee L. Powers, antique furniture, float, '• The Old New England 
Kitchen." 



ATHLETIC SPORTS. 

CAMBRIDGE FIELD. 

Under the supervision of John W. Flynn. 

Football Match. 

Garryowens 3 goals ; 5 points. 

Sacred Heart Pioneer Corps " " 

Prize : $75.00 

Hurling Match. 

"William O'Briens 3 goals ; 5 points. 

Emmets 2 " 3 " 

Prize : $75.00 

Sack Race. 

W. D. MoClellan, first ; William Quinn, second. 
Prizes : $10.00, first ; $5.00, second. 

Three-Legged Race. 

W. J. Manning and W. Thompson, first ; AV. D. McClellan and Wil- 
liam Quinn, second. 

Prizes : $10.00, first ; $5.00, second. 

One-Mile Run. 

Cornelius Llnehan, first; H. M. Sweeney, second. 
Prizes : $20.00, first ; $10.00, second. 

Baseball Game (7 innings). 

Boston Woven Hose Company 27 

Cambridge 4 

Prize: $50.00. 

Officials. 
Referee and umpire, J. W. Flynn. 

RINDGE FIELD. 

Tiig of War Contest. 

J. Belcher's team ^ 

J. H. Burke's picked team \ 

Prize : $25.00 (awarded to J. Belcher's team, as it was the only 
entry that appeared). 



ATHLETIC SPORTS. Ill 

Baseball Game. 

Newtownes 12 

Cambridge Y. M. C A 11 

Prize : silver urn valued at $50.00. 

Bicycle Road Race (3 miles). 

J. H. Dennen, first ; W. J. Walsh, second. 

Prizes : silver inkstand, first ; silver cup, second. 

Handicap Games (Amateur). 

Under the supervision of Thomas F. Riley, C G. A. 

100 yards dash — G. G. Hubbard, first ; J. F. Rafferty, second. 
440 yards run — C. B. Stebbins, first ; W. A. Applegate, second. 
880 yards run — Stanley A. Hooker, first ; T. E. Bui-ke, second. 
One-mile run — Richard Grant, first ; E. L. Pope, second. 
Potato race — J. J. Crowley, first; C. J. P. Lucas, second. 
Prizes : suitably inscribed cups for both first and second. 

Boys' Race. 

William Altimas, first ; Joseph Corrow, second. 

Prizes : suitably inscribed medals for both first and second. 

Professional Games. 
Under the supervision of Frank J. McQuIggan. 

One-mile handicap — W. E. Manning, first ; Harry Hodgkins, second. 

Prizes : $15.00, first ; $10.00, second. 
100 yards dash — G. F. Clement, first ; Walter R. Hodgkins, second. 

Prizes : $10.00, first ; $5.00, second. 
Running long jump — A. McNiven, first ; W. R. Hodgkins, second. 

Prizes : $5.00, first ; $3.00, second. 
Putting Shot — J. J. Bolger, first ; William Leahy, second. 

Prizes ; $5.00, first ; $3.00, second. 
Sack race — W. D. McClellan, first ; John Quinn, second. 

Prizes : $5.00, first ; $3.00, second. 

Officials. 

Referee, E. E. Babb, M. A. C. ; judges at finish, T. F. Riley, C. G. A., 
Kilburn Adams, Newtowne Club, and H. J. Brennan, C. G. A. ; 
starter, John Bowler, Charlesbank Gym ; clerk of course, M. Stern, 
B. A. A. ; announcer, J. Corkery, R. B. C. ; custodian of prizes, 
Thomas F. Dolan. 



178 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

Play-out. 

The friendly contest between the Red Jackets Veteran Firemen's As- 
sociation, of Cambridge, and the Salem Veteran Firemen's Associa- 
tion was won by the former. 

Prize : silk flag, donated by the Ladies' Auxiliary to the Red 
Jackets Association. 

Officials. 

Judges : Chief George Cushing of Hingham, chairman, Capt. John 
Exley of Newton and A. J. Barton of Ipswich (at the stream) ; 
Capt. John Barber of Central Falls, R. I., and ex-Chief Thomas 
Hough of Maiden (at the pipe) ; Capt. C. H. Grant of Chelsea 
and Capt. William N. Clifford of Waltham (at the engine). Time- 
keeper : Captain Rufus Brigham of Hudson. 



I 




CupvriL.'lit by P. \V. Iiiittcrtit.1.1, Cambridire, Mass.. Juiii- :;. l-'.ii; 

RED JACKET VETERAN FIREMEN'S ASSOCIATION — CENTRAL SQUARE 




Copj righl l<y I). \\. Uuttertii-l.l, raTnljr..lie. Mass.. Jiiiie :i. 18'.«i 

SALEM VETERAN FIREMEN'S ASSOCIATION -CENTRAL SQUARE 



y; 







THE INVITED GUESTS. 

George F. Hoar, United States Senator. 
Henry Cabot Lodge, United States Senator. 
Ashley B. Wright, Member of Congress. 
Frederick H. Gillett, Member of Congress. 
Joseph H. Walker, Member of Congress. 
Lewis D. Apsley, Member of Congress. 
William S. Knox, Member of Congress. 
William H. Moody, Member of Congress. 
William E. Barrett, Member of Congress. 
Samuel W. McCall, Member of Congress. 
John F. Fitzgerald, Member of Congress. 
Hari'ison H. Atwood, Member of Congress. 
William F. Draper, Member of Congress. 
Elijah A. Morse, Member of Congress. 
John Simpkins, Member of Congress. 
Roger Wolcott, Acting Governor of Massachusetts.* 
Francis H. Raymond, Member of the Governor's Council.* 
John H. Sullivan, Member of the Governor's Council. 
Samuel Dalton, Member of the Governor's Staff.* 
Edgar R. Champlln, Member of the Governor's Staff.* 
Albert C. Davidson, Member of the Governor's Staff.* 
E. C. Benton, Member of the Governor's Staff.* 
Charles Kenny, Member of the Governor's Staff.* 
Henry A. Thomas, the Governor's Private Secretary.* 
William M. Olin, Secretary of the State of Massachusetts. 
Hosea M. Knowlton, Attorney-General of the State of Massachusetts. 
John W. Kimball, Auditor of the State of Massachusetts.* 
Edward P. Shaw, Treasurer of the State of Massachusetts.* 
George P. Lawrence, President of the Massachusetts Senate. 
George von L. Meyer, Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Repre- 
sentatives. 
Frederick W. Dallinger, State Senator.* 
Martin M. Lomasney, State Senator. 
James J. Myers, Representative to the General Court.* 
David T. Dickinson, Representative to the General Court.* 
Wellington Fillmore, Representative to the General Court.* 
* Present June 3. 



180 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

Jeremiah F. Donovan, Representative to the General Court.* 

John H. Ponce, Representative to the General Court.* 

James W. Coleman, Representative to the General Court.* 

George S. Evans, Representative to the General Court.* 

Walbridge A. Field, Chief Justice, Massachusetts Supreme Court. 

Albert Mason, Chief Justice, Massachusetts Superior Court. 

John W. Hammond, Justice, Massachusetts Superior Court.* 

J)aniel W. Bond, Justice, Massachusetts Superior Court.* 

Franklin G. Fessenden, Justice, Massachusetts Superior Court. 

William E. Parmenter, Chief Justice, Boston Municipal Court.* 

Charles J. Mclntire, First Judge of Probate, Middlesex County.* 

George F. Lawton, Judge of Probate, Middlesex County.* 

Charles Almy, Judge of tlie Third District Court, Eastern Middlesex.* 

Winslovv Warren, Collector of the Port, Boston. 

Jeremiah W. Coveney, Postmaster of Boston.* 

Fred N. Weir, District Attorney, Middlesex County.* 

Francis Bigelow, Commissioner, Middlesex County.* 

J. Henry Read, Commissioner, Middlesex County.* 

Samuel D. Upham, Commissioner, Middlesex County.* 

Joseph O. Hayden, Treasurer, Middlesex County.* 

Charles B. Stevens, Registrar of Deeds, Middlesex County.* 

Joseph P. Thompson, Registrar of Deeds, Middlesex County.* 

Samuel H. Folsom, Registrar of Probate, Middlesex County.* 

Henry G. Cushing, Sheriff, Middlesex County.* 

Theodore C. Hurd, Clerk of Courts, Middlesex County.* 

Joseph A. Willard, Clerks of Courts, Suffolk County. 

Josiah Quincy, Mayor of Boston.* 

Charles H. Odell, Mayor of Beverly. 

Charles WilHamson, Mayor of Brockton.* 

John C. Loud, Mayor of Chelsea. 

Andrew Grant, Mayor of Chicopee. 

John D. Henderson, Mayor of Everett.* 

William S. Greene, Mayor of Fall River.* 

Henry F. Rockwell, Mayor of Fitchburg.* 

David T. Robinson, Mayor of Gloucester.* 

Benjamin F. Brickett, Mayor of Haverliill. 

James J. Curran, Mayor of Holyoke.* 

George S. Junkins, Mayor of Lawrence.* 

William F. Courtney, Mayor of Lowell.* 

Eugene A. Bessom, Mayor of Lynn.* 

Clarence O. Walker, Mayor of Maiden.* 

Charles L. Bartlett, Mayor of Marlboro.* 

Baxter E. Perry, Mayor of Medford. 

* Present June 3. 



\ 




TAMMANY CLUB -CENTRAL SQIWRE 




n. W. liiitt.rti.l.l, I'anil.nM,-!', Ma.-a., .Inn..:;, 1 -:«; 

!ST. JOHN'S LITERARY LNSTITUTE- CENTRAL SQLAliE 



o 



K 




THE INVITED GUESTS. 181 

David L. Parker, Mayor of New Bedford. 
Andrew R. Curtis, Mayor of Newburyport. 
Henry E. Cobb, Mayor of Newton.* 
Albert C. Hoiigbton, Mayor of North Adams. 
Henry P. Field, Mayor of Northampton. 
Walter F. Hawkins, Mayor of Pittsfield. 
Charles Francis Adams, 2d, Mayor of Quincy.* 
James H. Turner, Mayor of Salem.* 
Albion A. Perry, Mayor of Somerville.* 
N. D. Winter, Mayor of Springfield. 
Benjamin Morris, Mayor of Taunton. 
Arthur Lyman, Mayor of Waltham. 
Montressor J. Allen, Mayor of Woburn. 
Augustus B. R. Sjjrague, Mayor of Worcester. 
E. G. KildufE, Mayor of Waterbury, Connecticut. 
E. S. Fessenden, Selectman of Arlington.* 

George D. Tufts, Selectman of Arlington.* ^ 

Edwin S. Farmer, Selectman of Arlington.* 
Joseph O. Wellington, Selectman of Belmont.* 
Thomas L. Creeley, Selectman of Belmont.* 
Thomas W. Davis, Selectman of Belmont.* 
Abraham L. Richards, Selectman of Watertown.* 
James D. Evans, Selectman of Watertown.* 
J. H. L. Coon, Selectman of Watertown.* 
Horace James, Selectman of Brookline. 
James H. Codman, Jr., Selectman of Brookline. 
Nathaniel Conant, Selectman of Brookline. 
William H. Humphrey, Selectman of Brookline. 
Luther M. Merrill, Selectman of Brookline. 
Frank A. Hill, Secretary of the State Board of Education.* 
Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard University.* 
John Fiske, LL. D., Cambridge.* 
Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cambridge. 
Rev. David Nelson Beach, D. D., Minneapolis, Minn.* 
Rev. Alexander McKenzie, D. D., Cambridge.* 
Rt. Rev. W^illiam Lawrence, Bishop of Massachusetts.* 
Charles H. Saunders, ex-Mayor of Cambridge.* 
Isaac Bradford, ex-Mayor of Cambridge.* 
Frank A. Allen, ex-Mayor of Cambridge. 
Samuel L. Montague, ex-Mayor of Cambridge.* 
James M. W. Hall, ex-Mayor of Cambridge.* 
James A. Fox, ex-Mayor of Cambridge.* 
William E. Russell, ex-Mayor of Cambridge. 
* Present June 3. 



182 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

Frederick H. Rindge, Santa Monica, California. 

William P. Derby, Department Commander, G. A. R.* 

Herbert 0. Moore, Ass't Adj't Gen'l, G. A. R * 

Hon. Chester W. Kingsley, Cambridge.* 

Dr. Morrill Wyman, Cambridge.* 

John Livermore, Cambridge.* 

Lewis Hall, Member of the First City Government.* 

William L. Whitney, Member of the First City Government.* 

Rev. Lucius R. Paige, D. D., First City Clerk.* 

John Holmes, Cambridge.* 

General S. E. Chamberlain, Barre, Mass.* 

Colonel James P. Richardson, Austin, Texas. 

Arthur G. Richardson, Boston.* 

* Present June 3. 




>■ IP ...... ^ 






««A 



Whitney k. Son, Cam'n 



CAMBRIDGEPORT GYMNASIUM ASSOCIATION 




:jM^ 



r *■! 



Wliitnry i Son, Cambri.l.')- 



ST. MARY'S CHURCH OF THE ANNUNCIATION SUNDAY SCHOOL CHILDREN 

IN TALLY-HOS 




Copjrigbt hy V. \V. liulti-rtitl 




Wliitncif iV Sun, Cainlirnlge 



TRADES' DIVISION 



GENERAL COMMITTEE. 



MAYOR. 
Hon. William A. Bancroft. 

BOARD OF ALDERMEN. 
President, John R. Falrbairn. 



Russell Bradford, 
Marshall N. Stearns, 
Henry White, 
Charles M. Conant, 
Peter F. Rourkb, 



Peter P. Bleiler, 
Clarence H. Douglass, 
Charles P. Keith, 
Watson G. Cutter, 
James A. Wood. 



COMMON COUNCIL. 
President, John L. Odiorne (ward 2). 
Ward One. 
Melville C. Beedle, George E. Saunders, 

WiLLLA^M F. Brooks, 



Walter C. Wardwell. 



Sedlby Chaplin, 
William R. Davis, 



John J. Ahern, 
Cornelius Minihan, 



Ward Two. 

Charles H. Montague, 
Clement G. Morgan. 

Ward Three. 

John J. Scott, 
Frank H. Wlllard. 



Ward Four. 
David W. Butterfield, Eben H. Googins, 

Daniel S. Coolidge, Hamilton H. Perkins, 

Origen 0. Preble. 



Albert S. Apsey, 



Ward Five. 

Robert A. Parry. 



AND THE FOLLOWING CITIZENS: — 



Mr. Henry O. Houghton, 
Hon. John Read, 
Hon. Charles H. Saunders, 
Mr. Mason G. Parker, 
Hon. Leander M. Hannum, 
Mr. John H. Ponce, 
Mr. Edmund Reardon, 
Mr. John Hopewell, Jr., 
Mb. Theodore H. Raymond, 



Mr. Henry D. Yerxa, 
Dr. Charles Bullock, 
Mr. Otis S. Brown, 
Rev. David N. Beach, D. D., 
Mr. George Howland Cox, 
Col. Thomas W. Higginson, 
Hon. William B. Durant, 
Hon. William E. Russell, 
Mb. Edwin B. Hale, 



184 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

Mr. Edward B, James, Mr. Charles W. Dailey, 

Gen. Edgar R. Champlin, Mr. James F. Aylward, 
Rev. George W. Bicknell, D. D., Mr. Joseph P. Gibson, 

Hon. John W. Coveney, Mr. William A. Monroe, 

Mr. Benjamin G. Hazel, Mr. Warren F. Spalding, 

Rev. Thomas Scully, Mr. Isaac S. Pear, 

Mr. William E. Thomas, Dr. James A. Dow, 

Mr. Walter H. Lerned, Mr. John D. Billings, 

Mr. John H. Corcoran, Mr. Charles W. Cheney, 

Mr. George Close, Hon. Chester W. Kingsley, 

Rev. John O'Brien, Mr. Stillman F. Kelley, 

Mr. William Goepper, Mr. David T. Dickinson, 

Mr. Joseph J. Kelley, Mr. James J. Myers, 

Mr. John S. Clary, Mr. J. Lyman Stone, 

Mr. Justin Winsor, Mr. Thomas F. Dolan, 

Mr. George H. Howard, Mr. John E. Parry, 

Mr. James M. Price, Mr. George A. Allison, 

Mr. John T. Shea, Mr. John C. Watson. 

Chairman — Hon. Willlvm A. Bancroft. 
Secretary — Mr. Eben W. Pike. 
Treasurer — President John L. Odiorne. 

CHIEF MARSH AT.. 
Hon. John Read. 

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEES. 

FINANCE. 

Presiflent John R. Fairbairn, chairman ; President John L. Odiorne, 
clerk ; William E. Thomas, assistant clerk ; Messrs. Stillman F. Kelley, 
Henry O Houghton, John H. Ponce, and J. Lyman Stone. 

SCHOOLS. 

Alderman James A. Wood, chairman ; Councilman George E. 
Saunders, clerk ; Councilman Daniel S. Coolidge, Messrs. William A. 
]\Iuiiroe, Thomas W. Higginson, Rev. Thomas Scully, Joseph J. Kel- 
ley, Charles Bullock, and John C. Watson. 

PUBLIC MEETING. 

Mr. George A. Allison, chairman ; Councilman Albert S. Apsey, 
clerk ; Alderman Henry White, Councilman John J. Scott, Messrs. 
Edwin B. Hale, Edgar R. Champlin, James F. Aylward, and Theodore 
H. Raymond. 

ENTERTAINMENT. 

Alderman Watson G. Cutter, chairman ; Councilman Charles H. 
Montag-ue, clerk ; Alderman Charles P. Keith, Councilmen Robert A. 
Parry, Cornelius Minihan, and Hamilton H. Perkins, Rev. D. N. 
Beach. IVfessrs. M. G. Parker. "William Goepper, Joseph P. Gibson, 
Thomas F. Dolan, John D. Billings, and John H. Ponce. 



GENERAL COMMITTEE. 185 

MEMORIAL VOLUME. 

Mr. George Howland Cox, chairman ; Councilman Albert S. Apsey, 
clerk ; Alderman Russell Bradford, Councilman David W. Butterfield, 
Rev. John O'Brien, Messrs. Justin Winsor, John Hopewell, Jr., and 
Chester W. Kingsley. 

DECORATIONS AND ILLUMINATION. 

Alderman Charles P. Keith, chairman ; Councilman William F. 
Brooks, clerk ; Councilman David W. Butterfield, Messrs. Charles H. 
Saunders, John H. Corcoran, Charles W. Dailey, Warren F. Spalding, 
and John E. Parry. 



Hon. Chester W. Kingsley, chairman ; Councilman John J. Ahem, 
clerk ; Alderman Clarence H. Douglass, Councilman Sedley Chaplin, 
Messrs. Thomas W. Higginson and Isaac S. Pear, Rev. George W. 
Bicknell and Rev. John O'Brien. 

FIREWORKS. 

Alderman Charles M. Conant, chairman ; Councilman Clement G. 
Morgan, clerk ; Councilman William R. Davis, Messrs. John Read, 
Edward B. James, Benjamin G. Hazel, James M. Price, James A. 
Dow, and David T. Dickinson. 

RECEPTION. 

President John R. Fairbairn, chairman ; Mr. James F. Aylward, 
clerk ; President John L. Odiorne, Messrs. Charles H. Saunders, Wil- 
liam E. Russell, Edgar R. Champlin, George Close, Joseph J. Kelley, 
Edmund Reardon, George A. Allison, Henry D. Yerxa, John Hope- 
well, Jr., and James J. Myers. 

SALUTE. 

Alderman Peter F. Rourke, chairman ; Councilman Eben H. Goo- 
gins, clerk ; Councilman IMelville C. Beedle, Messrs. John Read, 
Edward B. James, John W. Coveney, John T. Shea, Charles W. 
Cheney, and David T. Dickinson. 

PROCESSION. 

Alderman Peter P. Bleiler, chairman ; Councilman Walter C. 
Wardwell, clerk ; Alderman Marshall N. Stearns, Councilmen Wil- 
liam R. Davis, Frank H. Willard, and Origen O. Preble, Rev. David 
N. Beach, Messrs. Otis S. Brown, John Read, William B. Durant, 
George Close, Leander M. Hannum, George H. Howard, John S. 
Clary, John D. Billings, Edmund Reardon, and Walter H. Lerned. 



186 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

INCIDENTALS. 

Mr. Henry 0. Houghton, chairman ; Councilman George E. Saun- 
ders, clerk ; Alderman Watson G. Cutter, Councilman Robert A. 
Parry, Messrs. Stillman F. Kelley and Henry D, Yerxa. 

BANQUET. 

Alderman Henry White, chairman ; Councilman Walter C. Ward- 
well, clerk ; Councilman Albert S. Apsey, Messrs. William B. Durant, 
Charles H. Saunders, George H. Howard, Isaac S. Pear, and Otis S. 
Brown. 

INVITATIONS. 

Hon. William A. Bancroft, chairman ; President John L. Odiorne, 
clerk ; President John R. Fairbairn, Messrs. H. O. Houghton, James 
J. Myers, and George A. Allison. 

MUSIC. 

Mr. William E. Thomas, chairman ; Councilman Walter C Ward- 
well, clerk ; Hon. William A. Bancroft, Aldermen Watson G. Cutter 
and Peter P. Bleiler, Messrs. John Read and John D. Billings. 

The mayor and Mr. H. 0. Houghton, chairman of the citizens' 
committee, members ex-officio of all executive committees. 




Wljituc-j- i Son, CambriJ;;. 




^ 



■1 1. 



Whitnej 4 Sun. CanibriJge 



TRADED' DIVISION 





TRADES' DIVISION 



CAMBRIDGE 

1846. — FIFTY YEARS A CITY. — 1896. 



JUNE SECOND. 

SCHOOLS. 

The Scholars of the English High and Latin Schools and 
the higher grades of the Parochial Schools will meet at three 
o'clock in Sanders Theatre. The Mayor will preside. President 
Charles "W. Eliot, Mr. Frank A. Hill, and Judge McIntire 
will address the meeting. The pupils of all other schools will 
assemble in their various schoolhouses, where suitable exercises, 
at the discretion of the principal, including addresses by citizens, 
will be held. 

PUBLIC MEETING. 

Sanders Theatre, at 8 p. M. The Mayor will preside. Dr. 
John Fiske and Rev. Dr. Alexander McKenzie will deliver 
addresses. The Cambridge Orchestra, W. E. Thomas, Con- 
ductor, will furnish music. 

JUNE THIRD. I 
SALUTE. 

Fifty guns in the morning, fifty at 
noon, and fifty at sunset. 

ENTERTAINMENTS, CAMBRIDGE FIELD. 

FOOT-BALL MATCH, 7.30 A. M. 

Sacred Heart Pioneer Corps vs. Garryowens. 

HURLING MATCH. 

Emmets vs. William O'Briens, 8.30 A. m. 



188 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 

After the Parade, between 2.30 and 3.30 p. m. 

SACK RACE. 

2.30 p. M. 
First Prize, $10.00. Second, $5.00. 

THBEE-LEGGED RACE. 
2.45 P. M. 

First Prize, $10.00. Second, $5.00. 

ONE-MILE RUN. 
3 P. M. 

First Prize, $20.00. Second, $10.00. 
3.30 P. M. 

BASE BALL GAME. 

Boston "Woven Hose vs. Cambridge Base Ball Club. 
Music by a military band. 

ENTERTAINMENTS, RINDGE FIELD. 

8 A. M. 

Tug of War. Prize, S25.00. 

Open only to teams composed of residents of Cambridge. 
The Committee reserve the right to reject any or all entries. 

9 A. M. 

Base Ball Match. Newtowne vs. Y. M. C. A. 
Prize valued at 350.00. 

10 A. M. 

Bicycle Road Race, 3 miles. For residents of Ward 5. 
Valuable prizes will be awarded to 1st and 2d men. 

11 A. M. 
Handicap Games. Open to all Amateurs. 

100 Yards Dash. 

440 Yards Run. 

880 Yards Rnn. 

One Mile Run. 

Potato Race. 




Miitney .^ Son, Cambridgi 




TRADES' DIVISION 




Whitney i Son, Cambridire 




Wliiliicv \ S..n. Cainliri.l.- 



TliADKS- DIVISION 



OFFICIAL PROGRAMME. 189 

Suitably inscribed cups will be given to 1st and 2d men in 
each event. 

Games sanctioned by the N. E. A. A. A. U., and under 
A. A. U. rules. 

Mr. Thomas F. Riley (C. G. A.) will supervise these events. 

12.15 P. M. 

Boys' Race. Open to North Cambridge boys only, under 14 

years. 

Medals will be given for 1st and 2d prizes. 

12.30 P. M. 
Professional Games. Open to residents of Cambridge only. 

One Mile Handicap. 1st Prize, $15.00 ; 2d Prize, $10.00. 

100 Yards Dash. " 10.00 ; " 5.00. 

Running Long Jump. " 5.00 ; " 3.00. 

Putting Shot. " 5.00 ; " 3.00. 

Sack Race. " 5.00 ; " 3.00. 

These events will be under the supervision of Mr. Frank J. 
McGuiggan. The Committee reserve the right to reject any 
or all entries. 

All events will be called promptly at the time specified. 

Music during the entire programme will be furnished by a 
military band. 

PROCESSION. 

The procession will move through the following streets, start- 
ing at 11 A. M. : — 

From Third St., East Cambridge, Cambridge St., Windsor, 
Harvard, Columbia, Lafayette Square, Massachusetts Ave., 
Lee, Harvard, Harvard Square, Brattle Square, Brattle St., 
Craigie, Concord Ave., Bond, Garden, Linnaean, Massachusetts 
Ave., to Coggswell Ave. ; countermarch, Massachusetts Ave. to 
Waterhouse, around the Common to Garden, past the Wash- 
ington Elm to Massachusetts Ave. 

The procession will be reviewed and dismissed on Garden St., 
opposite the Soldier's Monument. 



19a CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS A CITY. 



ENTERTAINMENT, CAMBRIDGE COMMON. 

The tablet in front of the 1896 tree will be unveiled at 12.30 
on Cambridge Common. 

1 P. M. 
Cantabrigia Club tents for Grammar School Children. 

BANQUET. 
Union Hall at 3.30 p. M. 

PLAY-OUT. 

Friendly contest between the Red Jackets of Cambridge and 
the Salem Company at 5 p. M. on Cambridge Common. 

FIREWORKS. 

A full display will be made at Holmes Field and Cambridge 
Field at 8 p. m. A band concert will be given at each field. 

EVENING RECEPTION. 

City Hall, 8 o'clock. His Honor The Lieutenant-Governor, 
President Charles W. Eliot, The Mayor, Mr. Henry O. Houghton, 
Chairman of the Citizens' Committee, Hon. John Read, the Chief 
Marshal, and the Ex-Mayors of Cambridge, with ladies, have 
been asked to receive. The City Departments will receive in 
their various offices. The Cambridge Orchestra, W. E. Thomas, 
conductor, will furnish music. 



The tower of City Hall will be illuminated from May 4th to 
June 3d. 

Subscriptions to the memorial volume may be sent to George 
Howland Cox, chairman, City Hall. Price $1.00 for the first 
edition. 

WILLIAM A. BANCROFT, 

Chairman General Committee. 

HENRY 0. HOUGHTON, 

Chairman Citinens' Committee. 




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OFFICIAL PROGRAMME. 191 

CHILDKEN'S CELEBRATION. 

CMIP 1946. 
Cambridge Common, June 3, 1896, at 1 p. m. 

1. Assembly Call. 

2. Recollections of the War Woburn Band. 

3. America. 

The Cambridge Hymn, 

Sung by all the Children, led by Frederick E. Chapman, assisted 
by the Woburn Band. 

4. Prof. W. E. Floyd, Magician. 

5. C. W. Williams, Impersonator. 

6. Jack, the Trained Dog from Vermont. 

7. The Old Kentucky Concert Co. 

The various features of the programme will be given in different 
order in the several tents. 



FINANCIAL STATEMENT. 

John L. Odiorne, Treasurer, in account with the Fiftieth Anniversary 
Celebration Committee. 



Dr. 



City of Cambridge 

213 subscriptions 

Sale of " The Cambridge of 1896 " . . . . 

Tickets to banquet, June 3 

Treasurer of Beach Dinner Committee . 

Cr. 

Cash paid on ace. of Com. on Memorial Volume 

" " " Procession 

" " " lUumination . 

*' " " Entertainment 

<' " " Schools . . 

" " " Fireworks . 

" " " Reception . 

" " " Salute . . . 

« " " Tree . . . 

" " " Public Meeting 

" " " Banquet . . 

" " " Incidentals . 

Balance on hand November 14, 1896 . . 



$5,000.00 

4,899.75 

3,505.10 

187.00 

40.49 



$13,632.34 



$4,137.37 

663.50 

1,201.55 

1,825.24 

442.57 

1,260.30 

692.95 

250.00 

74.51 

74.64 

449.70 

2,132.10 

$13,204.43 
427.91 



$13,632.34 



Note. — This statement does not include several hundred dollars, 
in outstanding accounts, which have since been collected and placed to 
the credit of the memorial volume. 



Happy are the people that can look back upon the work of their 
fathers and in their heart of hearts pronounce it good. — John Fiske. 




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